One Teaspoon of Hope
by VintageMyDarling
Summary: Katniss is a single mother living in New York City, just struggling to pay her rent. After entering a local bakery on a whim lands her a promising new job, things are looking up for the Everdeen clan, especially with the appearance of the handsome son of the baker, Peeta Mellark. However, their pasts may be coming back to haunt them. Will this be a recipe for romance or disaster?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **My two passions in life are this: baking and writing. I thought I'd combine the two just to see what happens. The characters are, quite obviously, not mine. I hope you enjoy reading it as much I did writing it.

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You'd think the early morning traffic of the city below would be what woke me. No, I'd long since learned to drown the city noise out; that's how you adapt to life in New York, where police sirens and honking taxi cabs become the soundtrack to your days. What woke me was the sound my ears had been trained to pick up. The patter of little feet on my hardwood floor.

My eyes crept open just a tad. I was draped unceremoniously across my bed on my stomach, with a sizeable puddle of drool on my pillow. Sure enough, those feet were scampering around the apartment. I was debating on whether or not leaving the warmth of my bed was absolutely necessary when the clanking of dishes decided for me. Throwing the covers off of my legs, I made a mental note to shave and then picked up a wrinkled New York University sweatshirt off of the floor.

The noise from the kitchen became more insistent, so I padded quickly down the hallway, images of my apartment going up in flames already rooting in brain. Her back was to me when I came around the corner. She perched on a stool, upper half deep in the pantry, humming to herself. I couldn't suppress my smile. At least she wasn't sticking forks in toasters. "Whatcha doing, button?"

She started at my words, spinning around on the stool and nearly losing her balance. The look of surprise on her face instantly melted into a grin when she saw me, though. "It's a surprise!" she told me eagerly. I glanced at the table in the middle of the room and saw two bowls, two spoons, and the jug of orange juice sitting there.

"Are you making me breakfast?" I asked, coming forward to scoop her off of the stool and spin her around. She giggled and nodded excitedly. Mia was five (almost six) with big silver eyes like mine, olive skin, and wavy ash blonde hair down to the middle of her back - she refused to get it cut. She was mischievous, tireless, and determinedly stubborn, but she was also the light of my life. "So what are we having?" I asked her once I'd set her back down. She was short for her age, only coming up to my hip, but then again so was I.

"Cereal!" Mia said in a sing song voice, climbing back up on the stool and pulling out a box of apple cinnamon Chex. I let her pour it into the bowls, but decided it was best if I handled the milk after seeing her try to pour her own juice on a daily basis; more usually ends up on the counter than in the cup. The Chex were a bit stale and I'd accidentally bought orange juice with pulp instead of without, but it was still the nicest breakfast I'd had in a long time.

"Thank you for that, button. It was delicious." I pecked a kiss on top of her head as I collected our dishes and took them to the sink. While I washed up, Mia plopped contently in front of the television. The Phineas & Ferb theme song floated in to me every now and then. I was starting to believe this might actually turn out to be a good day when the telephone rang and the hope died a slow, painful death inside me. Grabbing the dishrag to hurriedly dry my hands, I lunged for the phone to stop the shrill noise. "Hello?"

"Miss Everdeen?" I recognized the oily voice on the other end immediately and felt my teeth grit in disgust.

"Mr. Crane. To what do I owe the honor?" I said drily. Seneca Crane was my douchebag landlord. He kept terrible apartments, and an even terribler beard.

"Oh, I just thought I'd call to chat. See how everything's going." I bristled, not liking his tone.

"That repair guy never came to check on the thermostat last week."

"Ah, yes...I forgot about that. Must have slipped my mind, I suppose."

"What do you want, Seneca?" I snapped, wishing he'd just get to the point. I heard him sigh heavily.

"Your rent check is overdue again, Katniss." My heart sank. Shit! In all the hustle and bustle of the last few days, I'd completely forgotten to send in my rent check.

"Oh shoot," I said into the receiver, running to the counter where I could usually find my checkbook buried under one stack of bills or the other. "Remind how much I owe you?"

"With the late fee, $2,395." I almost dropped the phone.

"How much?" He repeated the number, and I swore I could almost hear him smirking. "For _this _piece-of-shit apartment?" I hissed.

"For the piece-of-shit apartment I am ever so kindly allowing you and your little hellion to live in." I glanced toward the living room and saw that Mia was thankfully still glued to the television, oblivious to our conversation.

"Seneca, I don't have that kind of money right now," I said on the verge of pleading. "I-I got laid off last week, and I've got bills to pay, and then there's food to put on the table, and-"

"Not my problem. I can give you until the end of the week, but if I don't get that check by then...I'm afraid I'll have no choice other than to evict you. Good day." The line went dead.

"Yeah, I bet you'd love to evict us," I said under my breath. "Fucking asshole." I ran my hands through my tangled hair, wishing for a magic solution to my problems. Perhaps the doorbell would ring, and I'd answer it only to be told that a distant millionaire uncle had died and left all of his money to me. It didn't, though, and instead I found myself slumped over my laptop at the kitchen table, chewing on the end of a pen while I studied my bank statement. $2,702.64 was the number my eyes focused on. The current balance of my account.

Paying Seneca's rent fee would leave me with only about $300 to pay for what we needed to. That included food, gas money, the new shoes Mia had been needing for some time now, and whatever else happened to require money. Which, in this day and age, was just about everything. I groaned and sunk down farther in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. Not having a job at the moment certainly didn't help matters. The steady position I'd held as a receptionist at a dentist's office downtown for the last year had been vile, but paid fairly well. In the words of the unsympathetic human resources person who'd broken the news to me "they were experiencing some financial difficulties and found it unfortunately necessary to cut back on the number of people currently employed at the office".

"Are you okay, Mommy?" Mia waddled into the kitchen and came to sit on my lap, her program evidently over.

"Yeah, button, just tired," I said, stroking her soft hair. I shuddered when I thought about what my happen to us if we were evicted. Where would we go? Apartments were hard enough to find as it was, let alone one that I would actually be able to afford. Would we end up in some kind of home? Would they take Mia away from me? I tightened my grip on her small frame. I would never let that happen. I couldn't.

A determined flame burning in my core, I straightened up promptly and set Mia on her feet. She looked at me inquisitively. "Why don't you go get dressed and we'll go out for a walk." I told her.

"Where are we going?"

"I'm not sure..." I paused, realizing it was true. "I guess it'll be another surprise." Mia's face lit up.

"Yes! I love surprises! I'll be right back." She scampered off to her room to change out of her Winx Club pajamas. I found myself grinned despite the grim outlook. It was hard not to be happy around someone so carefree. I tried to find something semi-decent for myself and ended up in jeans, a white shirt, and a gray cardigan with flats. I decided it would do. It's not like I was applying at the White House or something. After fixing my hair into its perpetual side braid, I hastily brushed my teeth and applied a coat of chap stick.

Mia needed help buttoning her jacket and wrapping her scarf, and then we were walking down the ever-crowded sidewalk towards the heart of town. We didn't live in a bad neighborhood to be honest. It certainly wasn't top-of-the-line, but there weren't corner drug dealers or gang fights, which was a plus. Mia even stopped to pet a friendly dog on the way. It wasn't a bad life, but I knew I'd have to work hard if I wanted to keep it.

I stopped in almost with a Help Wanted sign in the window: a boutique, a Starbucks, a deli, even a barbershop. Each place gave me an application to fill out, but none of them seemed like they were jumping to hire me. My palms grew sweaty with anxiety even in the cold weather. Mia seemed to notice, because at one point she looked up at me and asked "Are you looking for another job?" I cringed. She probably remembered doing this a few years ago when I'd first moved back out of my mom's house and was looking for one.

"Yep," I told her in what I hoped was a lighthearted tone. "And we're gonna stop just a few more places before we head home, okay button?" She nodded, but I could tell she was getting tired. After I filled out applications at a drycleaners and a small bookstore, I finally had to pick her up and carry her.

"I'm hungry," she said, leaning her head on my shoulder. I couldn't deny that my stomach was rumbling as well. The apple cinnamon Chex seemed ages ago.

"Alright, let's find someplace to eat." It didn't take very long walking down the sidewalk to find something that peaked my interest (and cued my salivary glands to start working). It was the smell that drew me to it. Fresh baked bread and cookies, mingling with a variety of spices, and then a tinge of coffee. I had to stop myself from pausing to visibly inhale the delicious scent. The name on the store was printed on the door in neat, curly white letters: _Mellark's. _I smiled, thinking what a lovely ring it had to it before stepping inside.

A little bell above the door tinkled upon our entrance and Mia lifted her head off of my shoulder to look around. "I'll be with you in just a moment!" called a deep voice from the back. The bakery was cozy without being cramped and I could feel the warmth seeping out of every crack and crevice. Several scuffed wooden tables were scattered around the place with people sitting at them to enjoy their food, and the floor creaked when you walked. I liked it.

Mia's eyes suddenly grew wide and she jumped down from my arms. My gaze followed her as she ran towards the counter, seeming to regain her energy. Upon closer inspection, I could feel my own eyes widen. In the glass case before us was the most beautiful array of desserts and pastries I think I'd ever seen. Rows of glistening fruit tarts, oozing Danishes, flaky croissants, and artfully frosted cookies. The wall directly behind it was simply and array of shelves filled with every type of bread imaginable. "Hi, welcome to _Mellark's_." The deep voice from before startled me from my pastry trance and I looked up to see and older man walking towards us, wiping flour from his hands.

He looked to be about fifty, with salt-and-pepper hair, piercing blue eyes that crinkled with his friendly smile, and a round belly. He looked the pair of us up and down for a moment and then said "I don't believe I've seen you two in here before. And I usually make a point to remember my customers." I wasn't quite sure what to say, not used to being so warmly addressed by a stranger, especially in New York. Mia beat me to it.

"I'm Mia Everdeen," she said, bravely stepping forward. "And this is my mom." She gestured to me. The man chuckled.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Mia Everdeen. I'm Phyll Mellark. Now, may I ask what your lovely mother's name is?" He directed this last part at me.

"Oh...Katniss," I said, stepping forward somewhat awkwardly to shake his hand. He did so heartily. Then he placed his hands on his hips.

"So what can I do for you today?"

"My mom's looking for a job," Mia blurted.

"Mia!" I said in embarrassment. I looked up at Mr. Mellark apologetically. "We just came in for something to eat." Mr. Mellark raised his eyebrows.

"Looking for a job, eh? Well you've come to the right place." He nodded toward the door. Distracted by the wonderful smells coming from inside, I'd somehow managed to miss the very obvious Help Wanted sign dangling right in front of me. I blushed crimson. He probably thought I was just pretending not to have seen it and was using my adorable daughter to help me get the job. "We could use an extra set of hands around here. My oldest just got married and moved out to Wisconsin of all places, so we're a little short staffed at the moment."

I could feel the hope returning to my body once again. "I-Are you serious?" I stuttered, forgetting all formalities. Mr. Mellark laughed again.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Okay," I said breathlessly. "Umm...is there an application I should fill out?" I started to rummage around in my bag for a pen. Preferably one without teeth marks. But Mr. Mellark was shaking his head.

"Nah. We're not too formal here. It's technically a family business, but I figure we can make an exception in your case." He winked. "Besides, you're certainly the most promising applicant so far. The last kid who came in was wearing black eyeliner and a pentagram necklace." I snorted. "So, when can you start?"

"Uh, anytime really. Actually, the sooner the better. I'm...somewhat...desperate at the moment," I admitted sheepishly, my eyes traveling to Mia, who had gotten bored with out conversation and returned to pressing her nose up against the display case. Mr. Mellark's gaze followed my own. When he looked back at me, he had not pity in his eyes but compassion. I did not trust people easily, but he was one of those rare individuals that was actually hard _not _to trust.

"How does tomorrow sound? Can you be here around 9:00? I can have my son show you the ropes and whatnot." I could not believe my luck. That I had just happened to stroll into this bakery looking for a sandwich and instead ended up with a job. The word fate would have come to mind, if I had believed in fate, that is.

"Yeah! Sure. That's perfect." I was trying not to sound too enthused and failing miserably.

"Perfect. That's settled then. Now," he began a bit louder so as to get Mia's attention. "Can I get you girls something to eat? At least a hot chocolate to warm you up? It's dreadfully cold outside today." His unending kindness was truly touching. I felt tears prick the corner of my eyes and blinked rapidly to clear them.

"Hot chocolate!" Mia shouted.

"Coming right up," Mr. Mellark announced with equal fervor. Once the hot chocolate was brewing, he called to someone in the back over his shoulder. I was squatting down with Mia while she pointed to her favorites in the frosted cookie section. Incidentally, it seemed like every single one of them was her favorite.

"Need something, Dad?" My eyes flitted up briefly at the sound of the new voice and then almost went back to the cookies before I did a double take. The man standing behind the counter now was so striking it took you a moment to adjust to his presence. He had windswept sandy blonde hair and the same piercing blue eyes as his father. His jawline was hard and undeniably masculine. I had to shake my head slightly to clear it, but thankfully I regained my composure quickly. Or so I thought...

"Katniss," Mr. Mellark piped up, "This is Peeta, my son." Peeta's eyes turned to where I was squatting and I found myself standing up, feeling obligated to say something. I didn't have a chance to before my shoulder collided with the glass cake stand sitting on the counter I had been kneeling by. In what seemed like slow motion, it tumbled to the ground and shattered into a mess of glass shards and chocolate cake ruin. Mia screamed, but I stood speechless and felt every pair of eyes in the bakery turn to me.

"Oh-oh my god," I spluttered. "I am _so _sorry." I knelt down and began trying to pick up the broken pieces, only to yelp slightly when I nicked my finger on a sharp edge.

"Hey, don't worry about it," said the voice attached to the pair of knees crouching in front of me. I couldn't bring myself to look at him, my face red hot with embarrassment. I saw his hand reach out and take mine. "Is your finger alright?" He examined it with scrutiny. Realizing the pathetic nature of my situation-I was sitting on the floor of a public bakery, surrounded by the pieces of the no-doubt expensive cake stand I'd just destroyed, and seemingly incapacitated by a cut on my finger- I jerked my arm away a tad more roughly than I'd meant to.

"Yeah, it's fine. Just a nick," I mumbled, sucking on it as I climbed to my feet. "Is there, like, a broom or something around here? I can sweep this up."

"Katniss, it's okay." I finally allowed myself to look at him. He was smiling. "We've got about of thousand of those in the back. It's fine." I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief. I tried to offer to clean it up again, but Mr. Mellark had already returned with a broom and dustpan and waved away my words.

"I do it all the time," he told me good naturedly. "You'd be surprised how often things break around here. Peeta just dropped a whole case of eggs we had delivered last week." Peeta laughed.

"It's true," he said, "Broke every single one of 'em. I had to make about fifty quiches that day or they would've all gone to waste." I laughed, relaxing a little bit. When the mess had been entirely swept up, Peeta stuck his hand out to me. "Let's try this again. I'm Peeta."

"Katniss. Katniss Everdeen."

"Katniss Everdeen," he repeated softly. My pulse quickened unexplainably.

"And I'm Mia!" my daughter cried, bounding up. Peeta looked back and forth between us and then crouched down to her level.

"Hey, I saw you eyeing up the cookies earlier." He nodded at the case. "Would you like to pick one out?" Mia's smile stretched so big, it broke my heart to interrupt.

"I'm sure she'd love a cookie, but she's allergic to gluten." Mia frowned up at me, as though her allergy were my fault. "Well, if you want to eat it and get sick, go right ahead." Amazingly, she seemed to be weighing her options.

"No, your mom's right," Peeta said suddenly. "We wouldn't want you to get sick, squirt. But tell you what, I'll see what I can do about whipping up a batch that won't make you sick the next time you stop by okay?" I watched in surprise when Mia nodded, even if it was somewhat reluctantly. Mr. Mellark was perfectly timed when he called her over to ask if she wanted whipped cream on her hot chocolate. That left me and Mr. Jaw of Steel to stand awkwardly by ourselves.

"Thanks for preventing _that _tantrum," I said. He just smiled and shook his head, but I couldn't tell if I detected a faint pink creeping up in his cheeks or if he was just flushed from the heat of the ovens I presumed were in back. "And, uh...I'm really sorry about the cake stand thing. Again," I added.

"No seriously, don't worry about it." There was another short pause. He ran a calloused hand down the back of his head. "So, you start tomorrow?"

"Yeah. 9:00 a.m. I'll have to get someone to watch Mia, but my friend's crazy about her, so..."

"I imagine it's hard not to be," he said gently. We watched as she danced around his dad while he swirled large quantities of whipped cream on our cups.

"Impossible," I answered, not much louder than a whisper. I saw him glance at me briefly out of the corner of my eye. Then Mia was rushing up to me with a cup outstretched. "Thanks, button." I swept a piece of her hair behind her ear as I took it from her. "We should probably get going. I'll see you tomorrow at 9:00, Mr. Mellark. Thanks again."

"Don't mention it!" I nodded at Peeta.

"See you around," he said.

"Don't forget my cookies, mister." Mia added, eyeing him beadily with her gray eyes. Peeta just laughed and promised he wouldn't. Then Mia and I were out the door hand-in-hand, leaving the warmth of the bakery behind but with a new hope blossoming inside of us that kept us warm all the way home.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N****: **I've been very touched by the warm response my first chapter received. A big thank you to anyone who took time out of their day to send me a review, subscribe to the story, or favorite it. My love for you is as strong as Josh Hutcherson's jawline.

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"Want another glass of wine, Katniss?" I heard Johanna call from the kitchen.

"No, that's okay. I think I've already had one too many."

"Good, 'cause I'm drinking the last of it anyways." Johanna strolled back towards the couch, swirling her glass of celebratory cheap wine. She'd insisted we uncork it the minute I mentioned that I'd gotten a job. She claimed she wanted to toast my good fortune, but I had the strong feeling she really just wanted to mooch my booze.

Johanna Mason was my former college roommate. We spent our first year hating each other's guts - our strong wills tended to clash - but now she was my closest friend. I'm not really sure how it ended up that way, to be honest. One minute I was banging my head against the wall at the thought of having to live with her another day, and the next we were sharing the same can of Mountain Dew while we helped each other cram for finals. What can I say other than that the world works in mysterious ways.

I think we got along so well mostly because we both had pasts riddled with secrets but we didn't ask about them. We were there for each other on the nights when the memories were especially terrible, but we allowed certain emotional walls to remain intact, no questions asked. Now there she was, reclining on my sofa with her (thankfully) socked feet in my lap, peering at me over her wine glass with her intense chocolate eyes. "You know, you're getting soft Everdeen," she smirked. "You can't hold your liquor anymore."

"Yeah, it's called 'I have a kid'. The craziest thing I did this week was stay up 'till midnight watching _Full House_ reruns." Johanna snorted. "Not to mention, _some _people have to go to work tomorrow morning," I added, poking her foot.

"Yeah, so what is this mysterious job, anyways?" Johanna inquired. "I was so excited about the wine, I forgot to ask. We could be celebrating your new employment at a downtown strip club for all I know." My eye roll was involuntary.

"It's a bakery. I didn't get the impression they'd be having me serve pastries in the nude, but I guess you never know." Johanna just stared at me. "What?" I demanded when she didn't look away. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry, did you say '_bakery'_?" I nodded. She burst out laughing, almost sloshing wine out of her glass.

"What?" I was starting to get annoyed.

"Katniss...you tried to make me a birthday cake last year using a _boxed cake mix_ and the thing turned out inedible. Bakeries generally try to serve food that people can eat without dying." I glared at her.

"That cake didn't turn out _that _bad." I remembered the hours I'd put into baking and frosting that stupid Funfetti Pillsbury cake. I'd even gone out of my way and bought candles!

"Honey, I used that thing in place of a car jack when I needed to change a tire. It was that dense." She started to laugh again, but her grin faltered when she saw the look of worry in my eyes. Instantly, she was kneeling next to me with a firm grasp on my hand. "Oh Katniss, I was just being a bitch 'cause I'm half-drunk. Don't listen to me."

"No, you're right," I told her flatly. "I can't make ice. I'm gonna burn the place down."

"No you're not. I'm sure even if you're not in the back baking, they have other jobs they need someone to do. Maybe you'll be on the register, or washing dishes or something. If they hired you on the spot then they're probably desperate for any help they can get." Johanna's words were comforting. Despite how much she teased me, she never meant any of it destructively. Plus, she was always brutally honest so I could trust that her reassurances were based on what she truly thought. I smiled at her and she gave me a sisterly peck on the cheek. "That's my girl. Now tell me all about it. What's it called?"

"_Mellark's_," I answered promptly, the name rolling pleasantly off of my tongue. Johanna's eyes lit up.

"Oh my god, I know that place! I stop there sometimes on my way to work if I forget to eat breakfast. Their scones are the best."

"Yeah, it seems like a really nice place. The owner's really friendly and it's totally chill. I like it." Johanna chewed the inside of her cheek for a second: her thinking face.

"Hey...you didn't happen to see this one guy there, did you?"

"You'll have to be more specific."

"Well, he works there and he's pretty much the most attractive dude I've ever seen in my life. He's got these eyes, and oh...his jawline." She groaned.

I knew instantly who she was talking about, but I tried to play it cool lest I endure another painful round teasing. "Umm, Peeta?" I suggested casually. She snapped her fingers.

"That's the one. Ugh, he's a real dreamboat, am I right?"

"Yeah, I-I guess he's not bad."

"Well he can butter my muffin_ any_ day of the week!"

"Jo!" I slapped her arm but I couldn't keep from laughing. "Shut your dirty mouth, missy. Mia's in the other room." I craned my neck, as though expecting to see Mia hiding somewhere, but the door to her bedroom remained firmly shut.

"Uh, newsflash! The kid's got a vagina. She's gonna discover it some day."

"Yeah, but let's not make that day today. I don't think I can handle that just yet."

Johanna and I spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing, nibbling on gluten-free graham crackers until I kicked her out around 11:00, saying that it was already past my bedtime. While I carried our wineglasses to the kitchen and placed them in the sink, what Johanna had said about Peeta earlier turned around and around in my mind. I thought of the way my heart had pounded when I saw him for the first time, and the way my cheeks burned when he'd touched me. Suddenly feeling overheated, I splashed cold water on my face and leaned against the counter.

So he was attractive. Big whoop. I was bound to react to a good looking guy this way. I was a woman, he was a man - human nature was just playing tricks with me. It didn't have to mean anything. I reached for a bottle of Advil on the shelf above the sink and popped three in my mouth. My head hurt from all the thinking I'd been doing.

I went mechanically through my nighttime routine: brush my teeth, wash my face, change into my pajamas, check on Mia. She was curled up on her side with her blonde hair splayed across her small face. She looked so peaceful in sleep, and I was glad that the nightmares that sometimes haunted me seemed not to have reached her yet. I brushed the hair out of her face gently and she shifted ever so slightly toward my touch. My mouth turned up into a soft smile. I'd been through a lot in my life, but I wouldn't have changed any of it because it had brought me her, the one guiding light, the one unwavering presence I had. Mia was my everything. My only thing.

"Goodnight, my beautiful girl," I whispered, pressing a delicate kiss to her temple. She didn't stir. I left her that way, in her dream world, and retreated back to my own empty bed. Laying down, I felt my exhausted body sigh deeply, but my brain was far from tired. It raced from one topic to the next and ignored all of my attempts to redirect its attention to sleep. I thought about what tomorrow would be like and two words came to mind: new beginning. That's what this was, wasn't it? A second chance. A brand new start. It felt good. Like opening up a book to a crisp, blank page. All regrets behind you, all possibilities ahead.

That flicker of hope I'd felt when leaving the bakery that morning returned with a new intensity. It filled some void inside me, if only temporarily. It took away the feeling of helplessness that had been lingering over my head for the past two years. I snuggled into the cool sheets around me and allowed myself to be lulled into unconsciousness by the soothing feeling of rightness in life.

* * *

Waking up at 6:30 a.m. on a Monday morning was nothing new to me. I did it five days of the week so that I could get Mia fed and off to school. However, the task seemed more daunting that morning because I couldn't simply pull on a pair of sweatpants to drop her off in; I actually had to be showered and dressed. I forced myself to roll out of bed when my alarm went off, and then went to wake Mia. When she was comfortably situated in front of the TV, I slipped into the bathroom for a quick shower.

I felt much more awake when I climbed out, and the shave my legs received had been long overdue. Trying to recall what I'd seen Peeta and Mr. Mellark wearing yesterday, I decided on a pair of jeans and a long sleeved blue plaid shirt I figured I would roll up to my elbows later. As per usual, my hair went up in a braid.

"What do you want to eat, button?" I asked, walking up to Mia with a brush so that I could do her hair. She shrugged, too caught up in the Winx Club episode she was watching. "Do you want one of your muffins?" She nodded eagerly.

I pulled the muffins out of the freezer. They were these little gluten free chocolate chip ones that said they weren't supposed to be microwaved frozen but that I did anyways. I thought they were repulsive but Mia adored them. "Now remember I start work today, Mia, so if you need something while you're at school you'll have to call Johanna. Do you remember where I wrote her number down for you?"

"It's on the sticky note in the front pouch of my backpack," she recited dutifully. I set the plate of muffins at the table for her and brushed her wavy blonde locks, putting a bow in it the way she liked. I almost had a panic attack when she asked me if I could butter her muffin for her, but when I saw that her expression held nothing but innocence, I relaxed a little. Still, I cursed Johanna under my breath while I got the butter out.

When Mia was done eating, I made sure she was bundled up securely against the winter weather and the pair of us set off for my car. I always parked it on the curb directly outside our front door. It was a short drive to the school, and I'd been doing this now for several months, but my heart never failed to fill with pride when I saw my baby hurrying off to class, bright and peppy and ready to learn. "Bye, Mommy. Have fun at work," she chirped and I pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Once I was sure Mia had made it inside, I pulled out of the parking lot. The clock on the dash told me that it was only 8:15. It was about a fifteen minute drive from here to the bakery with the morning traffic congestion, so I would arrive there around 8:30 - a whole half hour before I was supposed to. I bit my lip. I didn't entirely wish to drive all the way back to my apartment just to sit in silence by myself. The place felt a lot lonelier and staler when Mia wasn't around. I often spent the hours that she was at school wandering around town or reading at the library.

Deciding that it wouldn't hurt to be early on my first day, I turned right at the next intersection instead of left and did my best not to succumb to the road rage that so often consumed me on my morning commute. All those things you hear about New Yorkers being rude people and even ruder drivers? They were completely true. The sound of honking horns never ended, and I didn't think I'd ever made a stop that didn't require me to slam on my brakes.

I parked in a space about a block down from _Mellark's _and tried to fight my way through the swarms of walking business men and women headed in the opposite direction. I had an inconspicuous purse slung over my shoulder that contained nothing more than my cell phone, wallet, gum, and my chap stick. I was always amazed when I saw other women carrying around huge honking bags that looked like they weighed about a ton and a half. It made my back hurt just thinking about it. I could see the wooden sign that signified the bakery ahead and managed to squeeze up to the door it hung over.

There was quite a crowd inside, and it was much louder than it had been the day before. Obviously, _Mellark's _was a popular breakfast destination for the working people of New York City. I squinted over the clumping line leading up to the register and was just able to make out a man who at first glance I though might be Peeta, but who I then realized was a little taller and a little scruffier. I could only guess that I was looking at Mr. Mellark's other son. The whole family bore a striking resemblance to one another.

"Katniss?" I started at the sound of my name and looked up to see Peeta standing in front of me, muscular arms laden down with plates and mugs from the table he'd just cleared off.

"I'm sorry, I know I'm early." I said loudly so that he could hear me over the noise. "I just got done dropping Mia off at school, and I thought I might as well just come here. I didn't realize it would be so busy." Peeta stared at me for a moment, but then he smiled and nodded his head for me to follow him. We wound our way through the bustling customers, back behind the counter and to a large area in the back that appeared to be where the baking was done.

There was a large, stainless steel counter in the middle of room, and all around us were ovens and carts loaded up with cooling breads. Sacks of flour bigger than I'd ever seen were piled in a corner, and I could only imagine that the rest of the ingredients were kept elsewhere. Peeta set the dishes down in the sink. "That's why we told you nine. We were hoping you could avoid the rush." I searched his voice for irritation, but he was grinning at me. My eyes wandered to his jawline and, for once, I had to agree with Johanna. It _was _pretty nice.

"Sorry, I didn't even think about it," I apologized again, but he shook it off.

"No, it's perfectly fine. Can you do me a favor, though?" I nodded, eager to help in any way I could. "Can you start clearing off some tables for me and just bring the dishes back here? I've got a batch of scones about to come out of the oven."

"Yeah, of course." I spent the next half hour running all around the bakery, picking up the dirty plates and cups left behind by the diners who had enough time before work to linger at the tables while they ate their breakfast. After that, it died down significantly, and I was finally able to bring the last armful of dishes back to the kitchen. The sink was overflowing with them. "People really need to learn to pick up after themselves." I grumbled to Peeta, who was kneading some sort of dough on the counter.

"Welcome to my life," he chuckled. I noticed he had a stripe of flour across his forehead, presumably from rubbing a hand over it.

"Umm...you've got a little..." I gestured awkwardly to my own forehead, and his hand shot up immediately to the flour.

"Yeah, don't worry. By the end of the day, you'll be covered in it too." A somewhat uncomfortable silence followed, where I just stood by the sink not knowing what to do and Peeta continued to knead the dough.

"So, is that your brother up front?" I asked to break the silence.

"Yep, that's Rye," he said. I couldn't hold back my snort of laughter. He looked at me.

"Rye? And your name is Peeta? What's your other brother's name? Bagel?" I wished I hadn't said it the minute the words came out. I barely knew this man, yet I was making fun of his family. I wanted to slap myself. Thankfully, Peeta made me relax by throwing back his head and laughing.

"Close," he said cheerfully. "His name's Cal." My eyebrows pinched together, confused.

"Cal? But that's not..."

"It's short for Calzone." I kept my mouth shut this time, but that had to have been the most ridiculous name I'd ever heard. Peeta must have noticed my expression.

"It's okay, you can laugh. We all know we have weird names. My mom was a bit, shall we say, eccentric." I shrugged. "Rye always used to try to change his name. He tried to convince everyone to call him 'Batman" for a week when he was seven." The last part made me laugh.

"Well, everyone in my family was named after plants," I admitted. He looked at me expectantly, and I realized he was waiting for me to elaborate on what exactly those names were. A giant lump formed in my throat, and I turned quickly back to the sink under the premise of starting the water to wash the dishes. "But yours fit, though. They're kind of nice actually." I was grateful when Peeta didn't mention my obvious subject change. He just agreed with me and then left the room to carry a tray of scones out to the display case. My sigh of relief was audible.

It'd been eight years, and still I couldn't say her name. It burned in my throat coming up; there was too much attached to it and it never seemed to be able to make it past my lips. I was almost thankful when Peeta returned because it forced me out of my thoughts, which could sometimes be a very dangerous place. He wanted to introduce me to Rye. Up close, the differences between the two of them became more pronounced. Rye's nose was a little bigger, and his eyes were a lighter shade of blue. His hair was also kept longer and more unruly, though it was the same sandy shade of blond.

We shook hands, and then Rye said "So you must be cake-stand-girl." My face reddened when he brought up the incident from yesterday. Since he hadn't been there, that meant that Peeta or Mr. Mellark had been talking about it.

"And you must be Batman-boy," I deadpanned, not about to let myself be embarrassed like that. Rye looked utterly confused, but Peeta doubled over in laughter. It took him a good minute or so to regain his composure, but when he did he straightened up and slapped his baffled brother on the shoulder.

"Katniss, you are going to fit right in here," he told me with a smile that I felt myself return warmly. At that moment, Mr. Mellark strolled into the kitchen.

"Oh good, Katniss, you're here!" he exclaimed jovially. "Found the place okay?"

"Yeah, the uh...giant sign outside that says _Mellark's _on it helps." I hadn't meant this sarcastically, but all three of them laughed.

"Excellent. Well, you already know I run this place pretty casually, so I don't really have any formal training set up for you or anything. I just figured Peeta and Rye could sort of show you around and get you comfortable with how this place works. It's not overly complicated, but it'll take some getting used to." I just nodded, and he turned to raise his eyebrows at his two sons. "Either of you up to the job?"

"I'll do it," said Peeta immediately. He cleared his throat slightly and his hand went to the back of his head just as it had done yesterday when I'd thanked him for preventing Mia's cookie monster tantrum. I figured it must be some sort of nervous tick. Like how I bit my nails.

"Great," Mr. Mellark said, clapping his hands together. "Me and Rye can finish washing up the dishes, then. We'll holler at you if it starts to get busy." Peeta wiped his hands on the front of his apron and then tossed it aside. I didn't miss the smirk Rye shot at him as he walked over to me.

"Well, I can show you the back room and the cooler where we keep all our ingredients?" he suggested tentatively.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you want." We walked around farther to the back and he pointed out things like more sacks of flour, shelves stocked with sugar, vanilla, baking powder. Then he took me to a walk-in cooler where they stored the eggs, butter, milk, and a variety of fruits that I assumed were for the pies and tarts they made. The whole thing was kind of overwhelming as I tried to picture myself mixing these ingredients together and baking them.

"So, any questions?" Peeta stopped at the end of his tour to ask. I twisted my hands.

"Peeta...I-I probably should've mentioned this earlier..." He gave me a slightly curious look but didn't say anything. I sighed. "I-I'm not really much of a baker. Or a cooker. Or anything, really." At first, I thought he was upset, but then he just shrugged his shoulders like it didn't matter at all that I was working in a bakery and couldn't bake for shit.

"Everyone's gotta start somewhere," he said encouragingly. My stomach dropped.

"Uh, yeah, I guess..." I didn't think he realized just how terrible my starting point was likely to be. Peeta cocked his head to the side.

"What? How bad can you be?"

"Have you ever seen that episode of _The Simpson's_ where Homer pours milk on his cereal and it starts on fire?" That made him laugh. I felt strangely satisfied at how much I was making him laugh that day. I mean, I made Johanna laugh quite a bit, but she was usually tipsy on wine or some other alcohol, so it didn't really count.

"Hey, you're pretty funny, Katniss Everdeen. I never would've guessed. You seemed so quiet yesterday." Had I? I supposed everything with the cake stand had gotten me a bit flustered. And meeting him for the first time had been a little bit of a shock to the system. I halted my thoughts. There went human nature again, just toying with my evolutionary weakness of being drawn to members of the opposite sex. I nudged a sack of flour with the toe of my sneaker for something to do. "But don't worry if you're not too good right now. You can start behind the counter just taking people's orders and pouring coffee and stuff. Maybe when we're slow, I can work on teaching you a few things."

I knew he meant his statement innocently, but my already guttered thoughts gave it a more suggestive meaning that sent a tiny shiver up my spine. "Yeah, I'd like that," I managed.

"Hey, whenever you guys are done flirting back there, a little help up here would be great!" Rye called from somewhere in the kitchen. Peeta and I rolled our eyes in unison before going out to see what Rye needed. It turned out that another little rush of people had gathered in the bakery. I immediately went out to see if Mr. Mellark needed any help at the counter and Peeta hurried to assist Rye in punching what appeared to be biscuits out of the dough he'd been kneading earlier.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. I retrieved various items from behind the display case for customers and Mr. Mellark showed me the basics of working the register. When we got slow, Peeta showed me how to operate the strange dishwasher they had for some of the bigger dishes; you loaded them into some sort of tray and then lowered a metal box contraption over them to start it. Miraculously, I managed to make it through without breaking anything, though I did knock over a few cups of coffee.

The three Mellark men were very patient and forgiving of any mistakes, and I thought they were probably just about the nicest family I'd ever met. It would have been annoying if it weren't so endearing. At around 1:00, I was sitting on a stool behind the counter, playing with a penny from the tip jar as I waited for someone to need something. Our last customer had been an elderly woman who came in to buy a baguette almost twenty minutes ago. She'd told me a very sweet story about how it was her and her husband's anniversary and every year he requested some bread from _Mellark's _for their anniversary dinner. Mr. Mellark seemed to know her and he'd come out to talk to her before offering her a second baguette to take home.

"Okay, Katniss, it looks like things are winding down around here so you can probably head out," said Mr. Mellark as he finished arranging a cake on a new cake stand on the counter. I fought with myself not to feel guilty, but I did anyways. "You did an awesome job today." I smiled.

"Thanks for lying, Mr. Mellark."

"No, I'm serious. You were a big help. Thank you." I hopped off of my stool and started to untie my apron. "So, I'll see you around the same time tomorrow? I know you drop Mia off at school in the morning, so whenever you can get here is perfectly fine."

"Yeah, that'd be great," I said eagerly. "Oh, and...I feel like I never really properly thanked you for this job. It means more to me than you could ever know." Mr. Mellark waved his hand.

"Don't mention it. We could a fresh face around here anyways. Lord knows I love my sons, but my God they can be a real pain in the ass sometimes." I couldn't help but laugh as I made my way towards the back room to hang up my apron.

"Headed out?" Peeta was wiping the counters down with a rag. He paused and leaned against them when he saw me gathering my coat and bag.

"Yeah, your dad's kicking me out," I joked. "But it's probably a good idea. I need to maintain my streak of not breaking anything all day." Peeta snorted and tossed the rag into a bucket of water in the sink.

"Well hey, you did great today. Thanks for all the help with the dishes and whatnot. Much appreciated."

"Yeah? Well, to repay me you'll have to keep your word on teaching me how to bake. Maybe then I can actually cook something edible for my kid sometime."

"Oh hey, that reminds me!" Peeta exclaimed, snapping his fingers. I watched, somewhat puzzled, as he grabbed a tin off of the counter and held it out to me. "For Mia. Her gluten free cookies." I took the tin and pulled the lid off to have a look inside. A dozen frosted sugar cookies shaped like snow flakes glittered with blue sugar crystals in the bakery light. They were beautiful. "I, uh, went out and bought some gluten free flour after you left yesterday. It's about time we started making some gluten allergy-friendly stuff anyways.

"Oh my god, these look amazing. Thank you so much; she's going to love them." Without thinking, I set the tin down on the counter and flung my arms around him. I didn't know what had gotten into me, but as soon as I fully realized what I was doing, I tried to back away. Before I could, though, I felt strong arms hugging me back. I could feel every tendon of muscle and every rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

"You're welcome," he half-whispered when I finally pulled away. I wasn't sure what to do now. Hugging was not a thing for me. I didn't really do it, and especially not to strangers. In fact, the only person I'd hugged at all recently had been Mia. It was foreign to me and I could feel my skin crawling, though I couldn't make up my mind on whether it was in a pleasant way or not. Trying not to look like too much of a social failure, I cleared my throat and moved to put on my jacket before I grabbed the tin of cookies once more.

"Well, thanks again. See you tomorrow." My words came out sounding a bit shaky despite my best efforts to maintain a nonchalant I-hug-random-people-all-the-time voice. He gave a small wave, and I could see that his other hand had found the back of his head once again. Before I could do anything else stupid, I hurried out of the kitchen. Mr. Mellark caught me as I headed towards the door leading outside and pressed a bag into my arms, saying it was the least he could do. All my refusals were met with increasingly firmer insistence until I just decided that it would be ruder not to take it then to do so.

I bade Mr. Mellark goodbye and waved at a sweeping Rye as I pushed out into the blustering wind. The bag was warm against my chest, and I hugged it tightly until I reached my car. Upon further inspection, I found that the bag contained a loaf of seeded bread, two blueberry muffins, a Danish, and two scones that I suspected might be the chocolate ones I'd been keeping my eye on all day. Unexplainably, I felt tears welling up in my eyes at the relentless kindness I had been shown by this family. I wondered if they truly understood just how touched I was by their random acts of kindness.

I had never met people so willing to help someone in need before. It made me want to be a better person. I shook my head. What was with me today? Being all sentimental? I was on the verge of becoming one of those girls that watches _Terms of Endearment _and owns every Taylor Swift album ever made. Wiping my eyes, I placed the baked goods in the seat next to me and turned the key in the ignition. "Lean on me! When you're not strong! I'll be your friend. I'll help you carry on!" Bill Withers crooned out the words to 'Lean on Me' through my stereo.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" I shouted, exasperated, before turning it off.

* * *

When I picked Mia up from school at 3:00 and showed her the cookies Peeta had baked for her, the girl was over the moon, promptly cramming down two of them and then chattering away happily about how pretty they were for the rest of the car ride home. She asked me a hundred questions about what I did at the bakery, and she barely let me finish my answers before she was on to another question. The whole thing was quite humorous, though her energy always surprised me with its high levels even after a day at school.

When we pulled up to our usual parking space, I glanced down at the bag of pastries sitting on the passenger seat. There was no way I'd be able to finish all of them before they went stale, and Mia would be of no help because they weren't gluten free. I quickly thought of someone who could probably put them to better use. Climbing out of the car, I helped Mia get her backpack from the trunk and then marched over to the entrance of the alleyway where he could usually be found.

Sure enough, he was slumped against the brick wall, unconscious to the world around him and with a bottle clutched in his dirty hands. "Haymitch!" I said loudly, nudging him with my foot. He groaned, but didn't wake up. I tried again, this time with more success. He jerked violently awake, and swung the bottle blindly. It fell out of his uncoordinated grip and rolled under a nearby dumpster. He rubbed his eyes and squinted up with me, a smile spreading on his scruffy face.

"Well, hey there sweetheart. Morning already?"

"Haymitch, it's like three o'clock in the afternoon."

"Is it really?" he said with mild surprise, glancing around. "Well, I'll be damned. Could've sworn it was nighttime when I dozed off."

"I'm sure it probably was..." I muttered under my breath. Haymitch was the surly neighborhood homeless man. He usually went to one shelter or another at night, but during the day he could mostly be found there in that alleyway, drunk as a skunk, muttering away about some war no one was even sure he had actually been in. But he held a soft spot for us, Mia in particular, and he often gave her little figurines that he carved out of chunks of wood with a pocket knife. Mia loved him.

"Hi Haymitch!" she said cheerfully. His smile brightened considerably when his eyes came into focus enough to see that she was standing next to me.

"Hey there, sugar. How was your day?"

"Awesome! Mommy got a new job at a bakery and the baker made me cookies that I can eat without getting sick! Look!" She held the tin out to him so that he could see and Haymitch let out a low whistle.

"My, those sure are awful pretty. Just like you and your mama." Mia giggled. "That reminds me, kiddo. I got something for ya." He reached into the pocket of his battered jacket and unearthed a small kitten statue made out of wood. If possible, her mood increased. She loved kittens, but knew I would never allow her to get one. They were too much work and they cost too much money to take care of. Plus they had claws and were just generally annoying.

While Mia fawned over her new acquirement, I thrust the bag of food out to Haymitch. "I ain't takin' that," he stated without even asking what was in it. "You got enough to deal with as it is without me takin' your food." I rolled my eyes, trying to be annoyed at his stubborn nature but knowing that I would have tried to refuse it too. Hell, I _did_ try to refuse it!

"Haymitch, just take it. It'll all just go to waste if you don't, and then I'll really feel awful." He eyed me wearily. "This isn't a pity thing! I just don't know what else to do with it and you're the first person I thought of that I could give some of it to." After a few more seconds, he sighed.

"Alright, but I ain't takin' all of it. You keep some for yourself, now." I groaned but knew that this was the best offer I was going to get, so I reached into the bag and pulled out the loaf of bread and the Danish, setting it in his lap. "Thanks, sweetheart," he muttered, somewhat embarrassed, to the ground. I just nodded. I knew what it was like to have to rely on someone else for your meals; it only made it worse if you made some big, mushy scene about it. So we left him with the bread and the Danish and made our way back to the apartment entrance.

He'd made a point not to start eating in front of us, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him bring the Danish tentatively to his lips and take a bite. I smiled as I slipped the key in the lock to open our door. Things were looking up for us what with my new job and all. It felt good to be able to extend that improvement to someone else's life, even if they were reluctant to accept it.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks again. Hope you enjoyed, lovelies.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **I apologize for the wait on this one, guys, and also for not responding to your lovely reviews. I usually make an effort to, but it's finals week this week, so I've been tits-deep in study guides and flashcards. Don't even get me started on my work schedule. :P Thanks for your patience!

* * *

I had never found myself praying for time to drag on until that first week at _Mellark's_. I knew it was work, but it didn't feel that way. Sure, my feet hurt after standing for so long sometimes, and I came home with a few burns after my misplaced hands found a hot tray out of the oven by accident, but the enjoyment that went along with the other symptoms more than made up for them.

Every day, I would drop Mia off at school and then head directly to the bakery. Mr. Mellark would greet me warmly from the register and then I would stroll into the kitchens to find Peeta and Rye working away at something or another. They always made a point to say hello even if they were super busy. All throughout the day, I was filled with a sense of warmth (both literally and figuratively) that left a constant smile on my lips even if I was exhausted from a poor night of sleep the night before. It was nice to just feel good again.

"That's good. Now just a little gentler. You're not trying to murder it."

"I am not murdering it!" Peeta laughed at my frustration. He was teaching me how to knead dough for the French bread loaves. So far, I hadn't done anything too disastrous, but I was walking a fine line.

"Relax, Katniss, you're doing great. Just...more like this." Still staring down at the lumpy dough, I saw two arms reach forward on either side of me, and two large hands covering my own smaller ones. I felt my chest tighten inexplicably when he started to move our hands in a kneading motion across the dough. I could feel his face mere inches from my own over my right shoulder, his breath wisping at my hot cheeks. "You want to knead it just enough so that it comes together, but if you over-knead it, it gets tough and dense when it bakes." I fought the shiver that came with the sound of his voice so close to my ear and concentrated intensely on the dough.

I watched, mesmerized, as it went from lumpy to smooth in a matter of seconds, and then seamlessly took the elongated shape of a baguette. "Ta-dah," Peeta said softly when he'd finished, though he didn't move to take his hands from mine. With a jolt, I realized that I didn't entirely want him to.

"Umm...am I interrupting something?" Rye's voice sliced through the silence in the kitchen and both Peeta and I whipped around at the same time to see him standing awkwardly with a sack of flour in his arms.

"No, Peeta was just showing me the right way to knead bread," I chimed in quickly. "According to him, I 'murder' it." Rye raised his eyebrows but he didn't say anything, instead continuing into the kitchen to plop the flour sack onto the counter and split it open with a nearby knife.

"We just had a huge order come in," he grumbled. "Twelve fucking dozen cupcakes by tomorrow morning at 10:00 for some birthday party. What birthday party requires _twelve fucking dozen _cupcakes?" My eyes bugged. Twelve dozen cupcakes? I quickly did the math in my head; that was 144 cupcakes!

"Apparently this one," Peeta said in response to Rye's rhetorical question. "What kind?"

"Four dozen vanilla with vanilla frosting, four dozen chocolate with chocolate frosting, and four dozen vanilla with chocolate frosting. Kill me now."

"Chill out, Rye. We've had orders this big before and we were fine."

"Yeah, but those came in, like, days or weeks in advance. Not the night before!" I could see that Rye was starting to get stressed out by the prospect; he was running his hands through his hair and sighing deeply. "We're gonna have to do all the prep work on top of this, too. Not to mention, we can't even start until later. Dad had to go into Queens to make a delivery, so we're the only two people in the store."

"I'm sorry, do I not count as a person now?" I asked with heavy sarcasm.

"You know what I meant," Rye huffed.

"We'll figure something out. We just might be up a little later than usual," Peeta chuckled, albeit somewhat grimly.

"There goes my weekend plans..." Rye trudged to a cabinet to look for something and Peeta turned to pull a sheet of cookies out of the oven. An idea popped into my head.

"I could come back later and help you guys out," I piped up suddenly. Rye and Peeta's heads turned in my direction. "I don't know if I'll be able to make anything really, but I can watch the counter while you guys do. Plus I'm, like, a pro at washing dishes now." The pair of them just stared at me. I felt suddenly self-conscious, like perhaps my suggestion wasn't warranted. Maybe they thought I'd just be in the way, but didn't know how to tell me.

"Are you sure?" Peeta asked me seriously. "What about Mia?" I shrugged.

"I can get a friend to watch her easy enough. It's seriously not that big of a deal."

"Well, if you can that'd be a real lifesaver, Katniss. We-" I didn't hear the rest of what he said because I was swept off my feet without warning and spun around and around by Rye while a chorus of thank yous poured from his mouth. When he finally set me back down, the room was spinning in circles and Peeta had three heads.

"I knew I was going to like her!" Rye enthused. It was all I could do to smile weakly and try not to fall over.

* * *

"Thanks again for doing this, Jo. They really need some help over there." I had my foot up on a chair as I tied my shoelaces. Johanna was at the stove making SpongeBob-shaped macaroni and cheese, and Mia was dancing around my legs telling me about a picture she'd drawn in art class that day.

"Yeah, yeah," Johanna said without looking at me. "You just run along and have fun at your little cupcake party with your incredibly attractive coworkers while I feed and look after your child." I rolled my eyes and went to throw on my jacket.

"Such a giver..." I said in a tone of faux adoration.

"Mommy, will you come in and say goodnight when you get home?" Mia asked sweetly with her gray eyes wide, as though it were even a question.

"Of course, button. I promise." I ruffled her hair. "Be good for Johanna, okay?" I glanced up at the babysitter-in-charge and saw that she was gingerly taste testing the rice pasta macaroni. "I'll have my cell on me if you need something!" I called to her on my way out the door.

"Good god, woman! Get out of here already!"

I laughed and pulled my scarf a bit tighter around my neck. Despite the decreasing temperatures, I'd decided to forgo driving unless absolutely necessary. My car was practically out of gas, but I was waiting until I got my paycheck tomorrow so that I could be sure I had enough to pay Seneca's ridiculous rent fee before I filled up.

I checked the time on my phone: 6:04. _Mellark's_ closed at 9:00 p.m. The bell above the door tinkled as I entered and a slouching Rye behind the register perked up immediately. "Peeta, Katniss is here!" he shouted in the direction of the kitchen. I heard the clacking of bowls being set down on the counter and Peeta, covered in flour, appeared in the doorway.

"Hey!" he said brightly. "Just in time. I managed to get some of the prep work done, but we've still got a ways to go. It'll go a lot quicker now that you're here." Rye and Peeta retreated to the kitchen, leaving me at the register. It wasn't exactly a busy night. After about an hour with only three or four straggling customers, I shuffled to the sink in the back to start on the menacing pile of dishes that was slowly building up, listening for the bell on the door that would alert me if someone decided to wander in.

I followed the Mellark boys around the kitchen with my eyes as they went about doing their prep work. Prep work, it turned out, seemed to be making things in advance so that they would be ready to sell for tomorrow. Unbaked loaves of different kinds of breads were lined up on pans, muffins and pastries that had run out today were being replenished, dough for cookies was being wrapped in plastic and tucked away in the refrigerator. Peeta caught my inquisitive expression and started to explain.

"We try to get all the bread we'll need for the next day ready so all my dad has to do when he comes in to open up is bake them. It cuts down on some of the time he has to spend getting ready, but he still comes in at three in the morning." My eyes widened. I hadn't realized it was such a lengthy, time-consuming process, but I guess it made sense. All the bread doesn't just magically appear in the case every day. "And we just bake up some of our most popular breakfast items so they're good to go for the morning rush."

"Basically, we just slave away all night so that the snobby businesspeople of New York City can buy their daily scones," Rye said bitingly.

"Well," said Peeta, "When you put it that way, it sounds much more..."

"Sweat shop-ish?" I offered. Peeta snapped a finger and pointed it at me.

"Exactly. But it's really not that bad. Rye just likes to complain."

"No, I just like to not bake twelve dozen cupcakes for one person's birthday party. It's completely unnecessary."

At 9:00 p.m. sharp, Peeta handed me a small silver key and told me to lock up. The boys were whipping up mass quantities of frosting and arguing over who was doing it better. "I'm telling you, your batch is too sweet. Needs more cocoa powder too," Rye was saying.

"Not true," Peeta retorted with an eye roll. "Here Katniss, try this and tell him how wrong he is." He held out a wooden spoon with a dollop of chocolate frosting on it. I couldn't help but blush when I realized he meant to feed it to me. I took the spoon into my mouth and sucked the chocolaty goodness off of it, averting my eyes so I didn't have to see his blue gaze on me while I did so. The frosting was heaven in my mouth; I had no idea what Rye was talking about because it was probably just about the best thing I'd ever tasted.

"Umm, you're nuts," I told him flat out. "That's fucking delicious." Peeta laughed while Rye gaped at me. Suddenly, a groggy voice interrupted from behind us.

"Boys? Katniss? What are you still doing here?" Mr. Mellark was standing at the bottom of a set of stairs I hadn't previously seen used. I'd just assumed it led to some sort of storage area, but now I realized Mr. Mellark must rent an apartment above the bakery. That would explain why he was wearing pajamas and a robe and looked like he'd just woken up. I looked between Peeta and Rye just in time to see them exchange a glance.

"Sorry, Dad, we didn't want to tell you because we knew you'd want to stay and help us. You don't get enough sleep as it is," Peeta said.

"Did we have an order come in?" Mr. Mellark questioned, rubbing his hands over his eyes. We all nodded.

"While you were out in Queens delivering that cake earlier today. Some nutcase wants 144 cupcakes by tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.," Rye explained. Mr. Mellark shook his head but I could see him smiling.

"Well, I know Peeta didn't tell me out of the kindness of his heart, but I know that Rye didn't so that he had something to hold against me the next time I want him to clean the ovens." The kitchen walls reverberated our laughter, and Rye's offended expression only intensified the humor of the situation. When we finally stopped snickering, Mr. Mellark was holding his round belly from a side ache and Peeta and I were slumped over on the counter with tears in our eyes. We were obviously getting punchy from a combination of exhaustion and being cooped up in a bakery all day; what he'd said hadn't even been that funny.

"How much do you have left to do?" Mr. Mellark finally managed when we'd all calmed down.

"The vanilla cupcakes are all done, but we still need the four dozen of the chocolate, and then the vanilla frosting. We figured we'd just bake all of the cupcakes tonight, make all the frosting, and then actually frost them tomorrow morning when they're cool enough."

"Right. Well, I can help you guys finish up what's left. We've kept you long enough, Katniss. Get on home and get a good night's rest."

"Oh! I don't mind, really. I can stay and wash dishes if you'd like," I said quickly, feeling bad that I was getting sent home to sleep and they had to stay here and work for another hour or two.

"No, he's right," Peeta insisted kindly. "You've been a huge help. Thanks a ton."

"Okay, if you're sure." I slipped my apron off and wandered towards the coat rack on the wall to don my many layers. It was nearing 9:30 and the winter wind was bound to be biting this time of night. "It's gonna be a cold walk..." I said absently, peering into the main part of the bakery so that I could look out the windows and check whether it was snowing or not.

"Wait, you walked here?" Rye asked suddenly. I raised my eyebrows at his surprise.

"Yeah, I didn't want to waste gas. Besides, this place is only, like, a few blocks from my apartment."

"Katniss, it's like 9:30 at night," he said incredulously.

"Yeah, so?"

"So, let me walk you home," Peeta interjected. I stared. "Let me get my coat." He started to remove his soiled apron.

"No, no. I'll be fine," I asserted weakly, waving my hands.

"I'm not letting you walk home by yourself in the dead of night through Manhattan, Katniss." The look he gave me shut me right up. It was insistent without being controlling, but his eyes shone so brightly that I wound up speechless. If it were anyone else, I would have fought tooth and nail that I was perfectly capable of managing the walk to my apartment without getting mugged. But seeing as it was Peeta Mellark, all my usual Katniss responses had been thrown out the window.

"Oh, that reminds me!" Mr. Mellark exclaimed. He dashed off upstairs and returned moments later, slightly winded, with an envelope in his hand. He offered it to me. I eyed it with curiosity. "Your paycheck." He chuckled at my wide eyed look. "What? You didn't think we were making you work for free, did you? It's a day early, but I figured you could use it so that my son doesn't have to walk you around New York City in the dark." Some unexplained internal part of me frowned at his suggestion. Maybe I _wanted_ his son to walk me around New York City in the dark...

"Thank you," I said instead. It was a lame reply, but the only thing that came to mind.

"You're very welcome. And you've earned it. Every single penny. Don't think otherwise." He sent me and Peeta off, bundled up in our winter galoshes, with a wink.

"Your dad is soooo nice," I blurted as soon as we were outside.

"Thanks. I think so too," Peeta laughed.

"No, seriously though. Your whole family will probably be canonized soon."

"Yeah...most of us anyway..." he mumbled, and I recognized that evasive tone. I used it almost daily whenever conversation started to skirt around the painfully frayed edges of my past. My curiosity was piqued, but I decided to let his allusion be for now and quickly changed the subject. "So, any fun plans for Christmas?"

"If you count sitting around my apartment all day drinking beer and watching the channel that plays twenty-four hours of _The Christmas Story_, then yes."

"Yeah, I'm not really doing much either. We were supposed to fly out to visit my mom in Seattle, but...something came up and we had to rearrange our plans, so I think it'll just be a quiet night in." The truth was that my mom had never invited us out to see her. She was wrapped up in work like she always was, trying to keep herself busy so that she didn't think too much. I didn't blame her for wanting distraction, but I was a bit hurt that she didn't consider a visit from her daughter and grandchild a welcome way to take her mind off of things.

Peeta and I were walking at an easy pace now, encountering only a few people on our way and trying to steal any warmth that we could from the glow of the shop windows on our right. There were a few seconds of silence and then Peeta cleared his throat.

"My...uh...my mom used to always be the one that did the whole Christmas dinner thing and whatnot. When she passed, we kinda just stopped doing it I guess." I frowned at his melancholy words, but he just shrugged. "Things change." Yes, they did. I couldn't disagree with that. Something in me wanted to make him see that change didn't always have to be bad, though. Sometimes it was for the best.

"Hey, why don't you come eat dinner with me and Mia? I'm not the best cook, but I assure you it'll be a better time than sulking with a warm beer while you quote 'you'll shoot your eye out, kid' back to the television."

"Hmm...something tells me you've had experience with the art of getting wasted while watching Christmas movies, Miss Everdeen."

"Hey!" I mock scolded. "That's not what we're talking about here. You didn't answer my question."

"I don't want to intrude on your guys' dinner. I mean, I'm sure you have plans..." he said somewhat bashfully.

"Well, those plans now include you. So you in?" Peeta scratched the back of his head, considering. I waited patiently, shoving my hands deeper into my coat pockets.

"Yeah, sure. Why not," he finally said with a hint of a laugh. "I mean, hell...it's a day off work and I've got nothing better to do. Might as well spend it with two lovely ladies." I blushed and hoped furiously that he didn't notice. His mention of a day off of work reminded me of something I'd been meaning to ask him, though.

"Oh, hey! I just remembered...I needed to tell you that I'm not gonna be able to work next Thursday. It's Mia's birthday."

"Is it really?"

"Yeah. I hope that's okay. I meant to tell you earlier, but it just sort of slipped my mind."

"No, no. That's totally fine," he assured me. "What're you guys doing?" I smiled at his seeming interest in the simple corners of my life.

"I guess she's been dying to go to Madame Tussaud's ever since she found out they have a wax figure of Taylor Swift, so I'm pulling her out of school for the day and taking her there."

"Oh, okay. Sounds like fun," he said with a grin in his eyes.

"What?" I asked, just slightly suspicious of his sneaky tone. He laughed and shook his head.

"Oh no reason. Is this you?" He nodded his head, and I realized that we were standing in front of my apartment. I'd been so enraptured in our conversation, I hadn't even realized where we were.

"Yeah, I guess it is. How did you know?"

"I recognized your car." Peeta pointed at my beat up silver Ford Taurus parked on the side of the road. I chuckled. The large dent in my bumper from when someone had rear ended me a few months ago _was_ pretty recognizable. I really needed to get the fixed.

"Well, thanks for walking me home and not letting me get mugged," I said, rummaging in my purse for my keys as I ascended the set of stone steps that led to the door of the apartment.

"Anytime. So, you'll just...uh...text me the details about Christmas?"

"Oh! Here, let me give you my number." I pulled out a pen and started to look for a scrap of paper to scribble it on, when his hand appeared in front of me.

"You can just write it on my hand for now," he practically whispered. "I'll copy it down when I get back to the bakery." I nodded and pulled his hand closer to me to get a better angle; he stretched his fingers out so that I would have a smooth surface to write on. Even though it was cold, I could still feel the warmth that radiated from his hand under my touch. When I was done, I let my fingers linger on his hot skin for just a moment more before dropping it.

"Okay. All set," I said, smiling shakily.

"Sweet. I'll see you around, then. Have a good night." Peeta gave a small wave and then started to head back down the sidewalk the way we had come. I watched his retreating figure before realizing that I probably should have said something in return to his goodbye. If I'd done it then, though, it would've just sounded stupid. So I kept my mouth shut and tried to will my eyes away from him so that I could focus on fitting the key in the lock instead of just scraping it around blindly.

It was then that I heard the slow clapping. It startled me and I whipped around, my heart hammering in my chest. Haymitch was leaning against a mailbox, bringing his mittened palms together in slow-motion. He let out a low whistle and my eyes darted to the bottle of clear liquor at his feet. "Way to go, sweetheart," he said, emphasizing every word, though I couldn't tell whether it was on purpose or just an effect of his drunkenness. "Quite a catch you got there. When's the wedding?"

"Ha ha," I spat bitingly. "What are you doing out here, Haymitch? It's freezing." By this time of night, he'd usually have wandered into a shelter somewhere downtown where he could find a hot meal and a bed to sleep on.

"All the usual places were full tonight, sweetheart. Don't worry, though. I got the liquor to keep me warm, and vodka don't freeze!" He laughed harshly and I cringed, trying not to feel the pang of sympathy that coursed through me. It wasn't my responsibility to take care of him. "They usually get that way around Christmas time," he continued. "With the weather getting colder and all. Not unusual." Suddenly, I was speaking, though I didn't remember my brain initiating the words.

"Haymitch, come to Christmas dinner with us." He stared at me blankly. I could feel myself doing the same back at him. Then he started laughing.

"Ah, sweetheart, you don't want my drunk ass ruining your date with that boyfriend of yours."

"He's not my boyfriend," I said coolly. "But you're right. If you're going to come, I want you sober." Haymitch just looked shocked. "That's my only rule. Anyone who comes to the Everdeen Christmas dinner must be completely and totally one hundred percent sober."

"I'm not sure you want to know me sober," he retorted drily.

"Eh, sober Haymitch can't be much worse than wasted Haymitch. C'mon. It'll ease my guilty conscience."

"No offense, but since when do you have a conscience?"

"Hey, I can withdraw the offer just as quickly as I made it," I cautioned, but I was smiling.

"Alright, alright I'll be there."

"Sober?"

"Sober."

"Okay, good. It's a deal." My key finally made it into the lock.

"So...are you just gonna text me the details?" Haymitch asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Goodnight, Haymitch," I said firmly, with an eye roll for good measure, before turning the key and cracking the door open.

"You could do a lot worse, you know!" I heard Haymitch call as I stepped through the door. I couldn't be sure I knew exactly what he was referring to, but I thought I had a pretty good idea. Maybe he was right for once in his life. I really _could_ do a lot worse.

"Well, it's about time you got in." I started. The apartment was completely dark, save for the quivering glow from the television. Johanna was sprawled on the couch with her arms behind her head of short, dark hair. "I was starting to wonder whether to expect you back or if you were just going to stay the night with your little bakery friends." She shot me a suggestive wink that I could see even in the dim lighting.

"Okay, you can leave now. You've succeeded in your goal of running up my cable bill watching reality television." I slung my jacket down on a chair and pulled the envelope from Mr. Mellark out of my purse. I now saw that my name was scrawled across it in pen. Johanna perked up immediately.

"Ooh, what's that? A love letter?" she asked, scrambling off of the couch to come stand beside me and peer over my shoulder.

"Yeah, a love letter to my bank account," I snorted. I slipped my finger under the seal and ever so carefully tore it open, pulling out the check nestled inside. I took a deep breath and prayed that this would be enough to get me by once I paid Seneca tomorrow. My eyes travelled to the little box that contained the amount of money I would be receiving. I had to stare at it for a long while. Johanna did too. "Is...Does that say...four hundred and sixty dollars?"

"Son of a bitch, I think it does." We gaped at each other. "Katniss...that means you're..." I watched as she quickly did the math in her head. "Fuck, you're making like fifteen bucks and hour!"

"Oh my god, that can't be right," I stammered. "I hardly do anything except wash dishes and take orders. This must be some sort of mistake." They must have mixed up my paycheck with either Rye's or Peeta's. They certainly put in a lot more hours than I did, and did a lot more difficult work to boot.

"Katniss, calm down," Johanna said, grabbing me by the shoulders. "I'm sure it's not a mistake. There's like what...three employees? And your name doesn't exactly look similar to Peeta or Rye. You're probably just a really hard worker and they're giving you credit for it. Plus, I bet they're loaded. All they do all day is make bank off of us snobby New Yorkers when we buy their little pastries." I shook my head, still unable to believe it. "Hey, I think you missed something."

Johanna bent down and picked up a folded sheet of paper that had been laying at my feet. In all my excitement and confusion about the check, I must have failed to notice it falling from the envelope. Johanna handed it to me and I unfolded it madly.

_Katniss,_

_I know what you're thinking, but this isn't a mistake. Believe me when I say that you've earned this money. I know you're in a rough situation right now, but I can tell that you work hard to provide a good life for your daughter, and I want you to know that things can be better. I feel like perhaps you wandering into the bakery wasn't just a coincidence. I think you maybe realize that too. The world works in mysterious ways. Take this money and put it to good use. I know you will. Thank you for your hard work and positive attitude. It brightens my day. _

_Phyllo Mellark _

Johanna had to help me to the table and get me a glass of water while I collected my thoughts. "Why are they so good to me?" I wondered aloud. "I hate feeling like I owe things I'll never be able to pay back."

"You and your pride, Everdeen, I swear. Did it ever occur to you that maybe some people are just nice and don't actually expect to be paid back?"

"Since when did you become an optimist?" I asked incredulously.

"Since you became a complete and utter whiny beyotch about getting too much money in your paycheck. White girl problems...I tell ya." I snorted and shoved her playfully away. She just yawned and stretched. "Well, you're kid is in bed, I listened to you rant about your insecurities...If you're good, I'd really like to go home an pass out now."

"You're free to go, Jo." I fingered the letter while she grabbed her things. "And thanks again for doing this. It was awfully nice of you." She thanked me by way of giving me the finger as she walked out the door. I figured that was as good a thank you as any from Johanna.

* * *

I sucked in a deep breath and clutched the check I held in my hand even tighter. No way was I scared of this asshole, but his very presence infuriated me to the point of a physical reaction. I fought the urge to simply kick the door in and instead rapped sharply on it three times. No response. I tried again, but to no avail. "Crane, I know you're in there so get up off of your lazy ass and-"

The door swung open, revealing Seneca Crane in a purple velvet robe and house slippers, his creepily groomed beard and ebony hair looking freshly gelled. "Katniss!" he said jovially, as though delighted to see me. "Won't you come in?" I curled my lip in disgust but stepped through the doorway in the space he'd moved aside to create.

"I'm sorry, I must've missed the memo about Dress-Like-a-Pimp Day," I said, looking him up and down. He laughed.

"Tsk tsk, Katniss. That's not the way I'd be talking to the man I'm about to beg for an extension on my rent check if I were you." He smirked.

"Well, seeing as you're not me and I'm not about to beg for anything, I think it's a perfectly acceptable way to talk to you." I watched as the smile left his face and one of his thick eyebrows crawled up into an arch. "Your check," I said brusquely, shoving it at his chest. He took it from me mainly out of surprise. "I think you'll find that everything is in order."

Seneca read it over wordlessly, his lips moving slightly as he did so. When he was finished, he looked up with a stony expression. Obviously, he'd been expecting to try to get something from me in exchange for more time to get the money together. Judging from his attire, I didn't think he'd had a free car wash in mind. "Yes, I suppose it is..." he finally said.

"Great, so I expect you won't be bothering me again, then," I said in a chipper voice before flashing my most dazzling smile and turning on my heel to head out. I paused with my hand on the doorknob. "Oh, and Seneca?" I turned back around and he raised his brows once more. "If you ever try to charge me that much for your shithole apartment again, I'll make sure that the right people are made aware of this little side business you've got going."

Fluidly, I stuck my arm out and knocked a vase filled with orchids that was resting on a side table to the floor. It fell with a clatter and broke into an array of pieces that revealed it had contained not only the flowers, but also roughly twenty dime bags of weed. Seneca spluttered something incoherent and I grinned again. "Glad you understand." With that, I flung the door open and left him to deal with the mess.

* * *

**A/N: **Well there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry again for the delay. You know how I told you before that I'd been working a lot and that it was finals week? Well yeah, and then on top of that I went and got food poisoning on Thursday. I ended up missing my two hardest finals because I couldn't stop puking long enough to answer a question. I know it sounds like a bunch of lame excuses for falling so behind on the update, but I promise I could not make this shit up haha. Anyways, though, it's here. Thanks for all the support!


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **The file that I upload to this site to write my chapters is a Word document of an old Physiology essay. So...if I ever accidentally post a chapter about eukaryotic animal cells and the Krebs Cycle, you'll know what happened lolz.

* * *

"Mia, if you don't hold still, this isn't going to turn out," I huffed impatiently through a mouthful of bobby pins.

"But you're pulling my hair," Mia whined. "It hurts." I tried to take a deep breath, but Mia was being especially difficult that morning. It was Thursday, her birthday, and she'd asked me to do her hair the way that I usually did mine. The trouble was, my energetic five (or I guess six now) year old did not have the words 'sitting still' in her vocabulary.

"It wouldn't hurt so much if you didn't keep moving." The words came out more harshly than I'd meant them to and guilt swept over me when I saw her face settle into an offended expression. I loved being a mother, but it was just a fact of life that some days would be harder than others. I was about to resume braiding now that she was finally still, albeit sulking, when there was a knock on the door.

Both Mia and I looked up in surprise. No one ever usually came to the apartment other than Johanna, and she had long since forgone knocking before entering; I'd given her a copy of the key and she knew she could come and go as she pleased. My first thought, as I set the bobby pins down on the kitchen table, was that it was Seneca coming to give me a few choice words about last week, but I opened the door to a much more welcome surprise.

"Peeta? What are you doing here?" He was standing in the doorway with a warm smile on his face. He had a gray pea coat on and a navy blue scarf wrapped around his neck. My eyes drifted down to the white box in his hands. I recognized it immediately: one of the cake boxes from the bakery.

"Sorry, I hope this is alright..." he said somewhat sheepishly, ducking his head. "I just wanted to wish Mia a happy birthday before you guys took off for Madame Tussaud's."

"Who's there?" I heard Mia calling from the chair I'd left her in. I stared at Peeta for a minute and then burst out laughing. He looked puzzled.

"No, no...I'm sorry," I giggled. "It's just...you're _so _nice it almost makes me mad."

"Well, I can be more of a douchebag if you want," he said lowly. I laughed again and opened the door wider so that he could step out of the cold.

"Peeta!" Mia squealed excitedly the minute she caught sight of him. She launched herself from her chair towards him, standing on tiptoe as she tried to see what was in the white box he was holding.

"Hey, squirt. Happy birthday." Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, their coolness shining in the light coming in from the window by the door.

"How'd you know?" she asked in awe.

"Your mom told me, so I thought I'd come surprise you."

"Yeah, and me too," I added jokingly. Then I noticed the braiding I'd managed to get into Mia's hair was coming unraveled as she bounced around Peeta trying to get him to show her what was in the box. "Oh, your hair's coming undone," I sighed, rubbing my forehead. When I braided my own hair, it took all of five minutes, but braiding Mia's hair felt like it was taking hours. Peeta seemed to sense my frustration because he quickly leapt into action.

"Hey, tell you what. I'll show you what's in the box if you sit real still in that chair so your mom can finish your hair. Deal?"

"Deal!" Mia agreed emphatically before prancing over to hop into the chair and making a show of sitting still as a statue.

"Oh sure...she listens to you," I grumbled at Peeta, though I could barely conceal my grin.

"Well, I have a secret weapon on my side." He lifted the box and wiggled his eyebrows, making me laugh again. I started on Mia's hair once more while she waited with baited breath as Peeta pulled up a chair in front of her and sat down with the box in his lap. "I remember your mom told me your favorite show was _The Winx Club_, so I did a little research and..." He lifted the lid to the box, unveiling what was inside. Even I had to pause what I was doing to look.

It was a round cake with eggshell white frosting as the base. The top and bottom edges were bordered with swirls of sky blue frosting. Bright pink and yellow flowers bloomed down the sides of it. On top was what really took the cake, though (excuse the terrible pun). Perfect frosted replicas of all six fairies from the show smiled up at us, their wings made out of a edible glitter. We took a good two minutes to marvel at his handiwork. "Gluten free, of course," he added.

"Wow," Mia whispered, reaching out like she wanted to touch it. "That's so cool. How'd you do it?" While Peeta explained to her how he'd found pictures online and then traced their outlines onto the cake using a special edible ink, I managed to get Mia's whole braid done in a matter of minutes. Much easier now that she was captivated by Peeta's story.

"Okay button, all done." I stroked the braid and she nuzzled into my hand. I saw Peeta smile and he moved the cake from his lap to set it on the table.

"Alright, I should probably get going then. Just wanted to stop in and say hi." He moved to stand up, but Mia caught his large hand in her own small one.

"Wait!" she cried. "Aren't you coming with us to the museum?" Peeta opened his mouth, looking like he wasn't quite sure what to say. Mia turned her round eyes on me, a pleading look. "Mommy, can he come? Pleeeaaaase?" she begged, drawing out her please extra long for added effect.

"Honey, I'm sure Peeta has things he has to do today," I floundered, looking to him while Mia pouted. He cleared his throat and ran a hand down the back of his neck.

"Well, actually..." he began, "My dad let me off early 'cause we've been super slow today, and I didn't really have anything planned..." He trailed off, and Mia took his words as an agreement to come.

"Yes! This is the best birthday ever!" She was wrapped around his legs in an instant, her face buried in his jeans. He looked taken aback at first but then lowered his hands to her small shoulders, patting them gently. When Mia ran off to her room to locate some stuffed animal she insisted on bringing with her, I leveled Peeta with a stare and shook my head.

"You didn't have to do that, you know," I told him, feeling bad that I was taking his day off away from him, but he just shrugged.

"It's better than anything else I could think to be doing with my time." Despite myself, I blushed and turned away to pull my sneakers on.

"Oh, and just so you know...My friend Johanna is gonna tag along to so-" As if on cue, the door burst open, missing colliding with my face by mere centimeters, and in strolled Johanna in a black trench coat complete with dark sunglasses and bright red lipstick.

"Honey, I'm home!" She grinned at me, baring her impossibly white teeth.

"Jesus Christ, Jo," I snapped. "You nearly decapitated me. And why do you look like you just stepped off the set of _The Matrix_?" She ignored my question and at first I thought it was just because she was Johanna and Johanna liked to ignore my questions, but then she took off her sunglasses and I saw that her eyes had fallen on Peeta. Oh yeah...the other person in my apartment. "Johanna, this is Peeta Mellark from work. Peeta, this is Johanna Mason, my incredibly rude best friend."

"Nice to meet you," Peeta said, offering Johanna his hand to shake. She chanced a quick glance in my direction and then grasped it. "Katniss talks about you a lot." How did he remember all these things I'd told him? Some of the stuff, _I _didn't even remember.

"Oh I'm sure she does." Johanna placed her sunglasses on her head. Then she held up a large bouquet of pink roses I'd failed to notice before. "I brought flowers!" she directed at me.

"Umm...thanks?"

"Not for you, brainless. For the birthday girl. Where is she, anyway?" She peered around the apartment and then Mia came racing out of her bedroom with her stuffed polar bear, Misty Lovelace. Unfortunately, Johanna had been the one to help her christen most all of her plush toys and every single one of them had a stripper name. Her stuffed giraffe was named Peaches Merlot. "There she is. How's it feel to be six, babe?"

"Awesome! Guess what?! Peeta's coming with us to the museum!"

"He is, is he?" Johanna said keenly, swiveling her head to give me a suggestive smirk. I refused to take the bait.

"He brought cake. How could I not invite him?" I gestured to the still open cake box on the kitchen table and Johanna handed the flowers to Mia so that she could go over and peer inside. I saw her eyebrows go up and her mouth open just slightly.

"Well gee, Peeta Mellark, way to out-fucking-do me," she hissed at him jokingly so that Mia couldn't hear. "What else did you bring? A loaf of bread with a sesame seed replica of the Mona Lisa on it?"

"Nah, when I make bread art, I usually go for the Rembrandt's," Peeta deadpanned. Johanna fixed him with a flat look but then started to chuckle darkly.

"Oh perfect, he's cute _and _funny. Just marry him now, Katniss."

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get this show on the road," I grumbled, hoping my embarrassment didn't come through in my voice. I helped Mia into her coat and slung my purse over my shoulder. It felt heavier than usual due to the box of granola bars and pack of juice pouches I'd crammed into it, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. A hungry Mia was a cranky Mia, and a cranky Mia was never a good one. The same went for Johanna.

"So, you got any brothers?" Johanna asked Peeta as we made our way out to my car.

"Two, actually," he answered.

"Oh goody."

* * *

Madame Tussaud's could usually be counted upon to be swarming with tourists, but as it was an unusually brusque Thursday afternoon, it was fairly empty when we got there. Peeta refused to let me pay for his ticket, but Johanna seemed to have no qualms about it. At least they weren't terribly expensive. I hadn't been to the wax museum in years. It'd been sort of a novelty when I'd first moved to New York, so me and a group of friends had gone to see it and left somewhat nonplussed. We'd all found it a little eerie to be enjoyable and the gift shop had made it feel a bit like a tourist trap to us.

Being here with Peeta and Johanna, and seeing Mia's excitement made it more bearable this time around. It was somewhat dimly lit inside, but the wax figures posed illuminated under spotlights. In just the first room, I could make out Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg, Marilyn Monroe, and Leonardo DiCaprio. More rooms appeared to follow.

"Wow," Johanna said, examining a figure of Brad Pitt. "I'm impressed. These _are _pretty lifelike."

"Yeah, definitely. But the way Brad's staring at me is making me a little uncomfortable." Johanna laughed at me.

"Only you, Katniss, would be uncomfortable if Brad Pitt was staring at you."

Mia was practically squealing with excitement, flitting from figure to figure and making me take about fifty pictures of her at each one. "Mom, look! It's Mr. Dasgupta from Curry in a Hurry!" she yelped, running over to a figure of Gandhi. All three of us doubled over in laughter, and she stared at us in confusion until I explained who the figure really was.

We wandered from room to room, howling with laughter at the figures whose faces had been locked in unfortunate expressions. "Dude, President Bush looks constipated," Peeta pointed out. Johanna and I had to clutch our sides. Then she spotted something, or rather someone.

"Ooh, ooh! Come take a picture of me with my future husband!" She threw her arms around a stoically mustachioed Johnny Depp and posed pressing her lips to his waxy cheek.

"Jo, I feel like that's probably really unsanitary. Do you know how many other people have probably done the same thing?"

"Just take the damn picture," she said, her voice muffled by a mouthful of Johnny's goatee. I reluctantly complied, and soon she had me posing for pictures as well. Peeta snapped a good one of us sitting on Abraham Lincoln's lap, and Johanna took a hilarious shot of Peeta diva-posing with Beyoncé. And of course, Mia had me take a million pictures of her and Misty Lovelace next to Taylor Swift. The fact that her smile stretched the expanse of her entire face gave me the patience to do so.

When we finally left, all four of us had toothy grins plastered on our faces. The grumbling in our stomachs led us to a mass consensus that we should stop somewhere to grab an early dinner. "Let's go to Curry in a Hurry," Johanna joked. "Maybe we'll run into Gandhi while we're there."

"Hey, I know this really great pizza place not too far from here." Johanna, Mia and I turned our attention to Peeta. Pizza...we were listening. "I know the woman who runs it; she's an old family friend. They have a gluten-free crust, too." I looked from Mia to Johanna and both nodded in agreement.

"Okay. Pizza it is. Lead the way, Peeta." The restaurant was about a ten minute walk from Madame Tussaud's. Along the way, we encountered a crowd of onlookers gathered around a trio of breakdancing men. A boom box blared just loud enough to be heard over the cheers. I laughed in shock when one of the men flipped himself upside down and began to spin around and around on his head, separated from the ground by nothing more than a flattened cardboard box.

"I can't see!" Mia yelled, craning up on her tiptoes. Without a word, Peeta had her up on his shoulders.

"Better?" he asked. Her laughter and wild clapping seemed an answer in the affirmative. I found myself staring at Peeta; this man with my daughter perched on his shoulders so that she could see over the crowd. Johanna caught me looking and nudged me with her elbow, winking. I stuck out my tongue. And then I smelled it.

It was a hauntingly familiar scent, one of stale cigarettes and metal, and I placed it immediately with his face though it didn't belong. Not here. My eyes scanned the people surrounding me. I thought I saw the back of a blonde head somewhere ahead, but I couldn't make out a face in that crowd. Just as soon as I blinked, the scent and whoever it had belonged to seemed to have vanished, but the chill that had settled in my bones remained. "Hey, you okay? You look you're about to pass out." Johanna gripped my arm with concern, as though afraid I would topple over. I just nodded and pulled my eyes back to the dancers, who were starting to wrap up their performance.

"Fine. Just thought I saw someone I knew. C'mon, let's go. I'm starving."

The pizza place, it turned out, was called Greasy Sae's Pizza Parlor. "It's better than it sounds, I swear," Peeta reassured us. It was warm inside and smelled like cheese and basil. The walls were lined with old, autographed pictures of all the famous people who'd visited.

_'Thanks for the slice, Sae! xoxo, 50' _read a signed picture of 50 Cent. I laughed.

"Hi there, what can I-Oh! Peeta!" An old woman in an apron with her gray hair pulled back in a tight bun hobbled out to the front.

"Hi, Sae." Peeta stepped forward to give the woman a kiss on the cheek. "How are you?"

"Oh you know..." Sae laughed. "These old bones aren't what they used to be, but I'm getting by." Her watery blue eyes shifted to the rest of us. "Who are your lady friends?" she asked Peeta with a smirk.

"This is Katniss and her daughter Mia." He pointed and we waved slightly in reply. "And this is Johanna."

"Nice to meet you all. Now...what can I get for you? You look hungry." We ordered a large half cheese, half Italian sausage pie on gluten-free crust and an order of breadsticks to go along with it.

"Woah!" Mia exclaimed when I pulled off a slice of cheese for her. "It's bigger than my face!"

"Pass me your phone," Johanna garbled around a mouthful of breadstick. "I need to see which pictures I want to send myself so I can post them on Facebook. I handed it to her and she quickly swiped the passcode in, getting grease on the screen. I tried not to cringe. "Nope...nope...ooh yes," she muttered to herself as she flipped through the photo album, chewing absently on her pizza slice. "Aww, look," she said quietly to me after awhile. "You look just like a little family."

She held the phone out and one of the pictures from the museum came into focus. Peeta and I were sitting on a sofa adjacent to a wax Oprah, with Mia wedged in between us. I blushed and pushed the phone back to her saying "Yeah, it's cute" and returned to eating my pizza.

* * *

An hour later, we were all back at my apartment, sitting on the couch or floor with paper plates of cake in our laps. Mia was happily surrounded by wrapping paper from the gifts I'd dug out of their hiding place in my closet. At the moment, she was patiently reading the direction booklet that came with a friendship bracelet kit, her small pink tongue sticking out from between her lips.

"Alright," Johanna yawned. She scraped the last bit of cake off of the plate and stood up. "I should probably get going. Told Finn I'd go to some god-awful concert with him and Annie. The Radioactive Waffle Brigade or something with an equally disturbing name." Finnick and Annie were Johanna's "married friends", high school sweethearts that had tied the knot as soon as they graduated. I'd met them a couple of times and they were so cute together that it sometimes induced my gag reflex.

I glanced at the clock on my DVD player. Jeeze...was it seven o' clock already? "You're not staying for the movie?" Mia asked. She'd informed us all that were going to be watching her newly acquired copy of _Despicable Me 2_ when we finished our cake.

"Sorry babe, but I gotta jet. Happy birthday." Johanna kissed Mia on the top of her head, gave me a quick hug, and waved goodbye to Peeta. Then she was disappearing out the door. Mia frowned for a moment, but then held up the DVD.

"Movie?"

"Alright, yes. Let's watch it already." I laughed and rolled my eyes. Oh what I wouldn't give to be a kid again and get so excited over little things like watching a movie. I noticed Peeta settling back into the couch and placing his hands behind his head. "Peeta, you don't have to hang around while we watch _Despicable Me_. I mean, I know _I _have no life, but that doesn't mean you should too," I told him in an undertone while Mia was putting the DVD in.

"Are you kidding me?" Peeta said with a wide grin, "I've been wanting to see this since it came out!" And so we dimmed the lights and found comfortable positions: me curled up on my side with my head on the arm of the sofa, Peeta reclining with his feet on the coffee table, and Mia sitting crisscross applesauce in between us. When the opening credits started to roll, I found my mind beginning to stray to what Johanna had said earlier in the pizza parlor. About how the three of us looked like a little family.

Wasn't what we were doing right then something that a family would do together? My stomach clenched at the thought. I didn't know how I felt about that, or rather I wasn't ready to address how I felt about it. The implications overwhelmed and frightened me, filling my head with swirling trains of thought that ended in confusion.

I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking it would only be for a moment so that I could gather myself, but when I opened them again I could feel that it was much later than I'd anticipated. My right hand, which had been squished between my cheek and the couch, was in pins and needles and I had the dull headache that often accompanies short, unplanned naps.

Before I could move and fully awaken, I felt other movement on the sofa below me. I saw a figure that could only belong to Peeta rise in the outskirts of my vision. He stooped down for something and then walked directly into my line of sight. Silently, I watched while he carried Mia, with her arms around his neck and her face resting in the crook of his broad shoulder, to her room. He returned a moment later to find me propped up on my elbow, staring at where he had remerged from the door.

"Oh hey, you're up," he remarked gently. "I guess you guys were tired. I hope you don't mind...Mia looked pretty uncomfortable, so I just put her in her bed. Poor thing was so out of it I don't even think she realized I moved her." He chuckled to himself and brought his hand to the back of his head again. I just continued to stare at him. Then...

"It's short for Mireille." Peeta paused where he was, his sapphire irises meeting my own slate ones. "Mia. It's short for Mireille," I repeated, rubbing my tired eyes. I still felt half-asleep. "It means 'miracle' in French." Peeta didn't say anything, just waited for me to continue. "My mom always used to play Mireille Mathieu for me so that I could sleep at night, and I remember her telling me what the name meant. I just didn't really think about it until..." I trailed off and I could feel my throat beginning to close up, but I swallowed hard and pushed on.

"When I went in to labor, her heart was beating too slow. Then they couldn't even hear it, it was so weak. So they had to cut her out of me...emergency C-section. They...they thought she was going to be stillborn." I slipped my fingers under the bottom of my shirt and traced the thin white scar that ran vertically from my bellybutton to the hem of my underwear: all that remained of the lumpy tissue it had once been. "But she lived." I broke the silence quite suddenly. "She was my miracle, so that's what I named her. Mireille Primrose Everdeen."

Slowly, I lowered my head back down to the cushions, letting my own words sink in. Reliving Mia's story drained me. I felt exhausted and limp, like a noodle cooked too long. I watched Peeta's legs approach the couch and then saw him take my hand. It felt like I was watching him touch someone else, though. The hand didn't seem to belong to me until I could feel the pad of his thumb delicately tracing it. We stayed like that for a little while, his thumb making soothing circles on my tingling skin. Then, ever so quietly, he asked the one question I'd known he would from the minute I shared Mia's full name.

"Where's Primrose from?" My jaw tightened imperceptibly and I let my hand slip from his. I shut my eyes and pretended I hadn't heard the question. That was a story for another time. I was so tired. I could feel my mind sagging beneath my heavy thoughts. Then Peeta's hand was brushing the hair off of my face, his fingers combing through the chestnut strands. His lips were on my forehead for the briefest of moments, like a ghost. They left a warm imprint, save for the coolness that the tip of his nose had sown when it too had brushed my skin.

Words would have been arbitrary at that point, so I was glad when he didn't utter any. He simply placed a blanket over me and then slipped quietly from the apartment as though he had never been there at all. I clung to the contrast on my forehead, the warmth against the chill, and floated easily away.

* * *

The weekend blew by and before I knew it, it was Monday again. I was leaning over the counter in the _Mellark's _kitchen and squinting at the tiny font of a recipe card for sugar cookie dough. "It's really simple," Peeta had assured me when he handed the 3x5 index card to me. "Just follow the instructions and call me if you need help." I ran my finger across the card to keep my place.

"One cup of butter, softened." I muttered to myself as I read. Okay. I could do that. Tugging at my apron, I walked to the cooler and stepped in. I located the sticks of butter and grabbed four of them. Back at the table, I turned a stick over in my hands, trying to make sense of the tablespoon markings on the wrapper that it came in. Rye, who was cooking bacon in a pan on the stove for the bacon-jalapeno-cheese cornbread they made, noticed my distress and removed the cooked strips from the pan to come over and see what I needed. "How many sticks of butter are in a cup?" I asked, frustrated.

"Two," Rye informed me gently, taking the stick from my hand. He glanced at the recipe. "But you want to use softened butter here. Otherwise it'll be too hard to cream." I wasn't sure what he meant by "cream", but I let him show me where they kept several sticks of butter at room temperature so that they would always have some ready if they needed it for a recipe.

I put two of the mushy sticks into a large bowl. "Okay...now it says I need to cream the butter with one and a half cups of sugar."

"Yup, so measuring cups are in here." Rye opened a cabinet and waved a hand like Vanna White to display the array of measuring tools inside. He pulled two of them out, each different sizes. "So add your sugar." I did. "Great, now take the wooden spoon and start mixing it together. That's creaming. You want it to be pale and fluffy when it's done." I attempted that and managed to slosh some of the sugar over the edge of the bowl and onto the counter within the first thirty seconds.

"Wow, I suck at this," I laughed.

"You'll get the hang of it. With enough practice, you're going to be making these babies in your sleep." I wasn't so sure about that, but I eventually got the sugar-butter mixture to the fluffy consistency he was talking about. Granted, it took about fifteen minutes, but it was a victory in my mind regardless.

"Okay and then in another bowl, two and three-fourths of a cup of flour?" Rye nodded and told me to keep going while he went and got the correct amount of flour for me. I was measuring out vanilla when Peeta popped his head in from up front to check on me.

"How's it going?" he asked, strolling over to see my progress. "I thought you said you were terrible at this." He held up my creamed butter and sugar, which I had to admit looked pretty good. "No, I do," I promised. "If it weren't for Rye, I'd still be trying to figure out how many sticks of butter are in a cup."

"It's true." Rye piped up from the back room. "But hey Peeta, can you come back here for a minute? I think I found the logbook, but it's stuck behind these crates."

"Oh, now I remember! It must've fallen when-" Peeta's voice became indecipherable when he disappeared into the back. I had cracked an egg and began to stir it into the wet ingredients when I noticed a deep, smoky smell filling the room that wasn't usually there. I scrunched my nose and looked up. My brain didn't register what was happening in time.

The pan Rye had left on the stovetop was popping and smoking heavily. Then, all at once and impossibly fast, it erupted into bright orange and yellow flames. My mouth went dry as I stumbled backwards in shock, my throat sealing up and swallowing the scream that was fighting to get out. It felt like my mind was on fire too. Images of the other fire I'd seen danced viciously behind my lids: thick, black billowing smoke, burnt flesh, walls devoured by hungry flames.

When I opened my mouth, the fire had already climbed to the wall behind the stove, reaching its menacing fingers towards the wooden cupboards above. "Fire..." It came out of my mouth like a squeak and my knees buckled under me. I sagged to the left and I found myself suddenly on the floor. I couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't speak.

Why couldn't I save her? She was right there! I could see her through the smoke now! "Prim!" I finally screamed. "Prim!" I reached out for her lovely, lovely hand. The minute my fingers wrapped around hers, they crumbled in my grip. She burned and fell apart. I watched her sweet face peel away like old wall paper, and her golden hair glow like the sun in the light of the fire before it turned black and charred. I watched my sister burn and burn and fade away until she was just a pile of ashes on the floor.

* * *

**A/N: **Oh goody, my first cliffhanger in this story. I'm sure you all just love me right about now. Just in case you were wondering, the name Mireille is actually pronounced like "meer-ray". It's actually my baby cousin's name! Hehe. Oh and for anyone who's curious, I actually just put up a link to a picture of what I imagine Mia looking like on my profile. If you're interested, you can go check it out.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Sorry for the long wait on this one, guys. And it was a cliffhanger to add salt to the wound! AP Chem has really been kicking my ass lately, so I've been writing about titrations and acidic salts rather than Katniss and Peeta :( Yeah sometimes I really hate my life.

* * *

_Previously..._

_The pan Rye had left on the stovetop was popping and smoking heavily. Then, all at once and impossibly fast, it erupted into bright orange and yellow flames. My mouth went dry as I stumbled backwards in shock, my throat sealing up and swallowing the scream that was fighting to get out. It felt like my mind was on fire too. Images of the other fire I'd seen danced viciously behind my lids: thick, black billowing smoke, burnt flesh, walls devoured by hungry flames._

_When I opened my mouth, the fire had already climbed to the wall behind the stove, reaching its menacing fingers towards the wooden cupboards above. "Fire..." It came out of my mouth like a squeak and my knees buckled under me. I sagged to the left and I found myself suddenly on the floor. I couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't speak._

_Why couldn't I save her? She was right there! I could see her through the smoke now! "Prim!" I finally screamed. "Prim!" I reached out for her lovely, lovely hand. The minute my fingers wrapped around hers, they crumbled in my grip. She burned and fell apart. I watched her sweet face peel away like old wall paper, and her golden hair glow like the sun in the light of the fire before it turned black and charred. I watched my sister burn and burn and fade away until she was just a pile of ashes on the floor._

* * *

Shouting voices and the sound of heavy footsteps weaved through the smoke in the atmosphere and I cringed at their hollowness. They sounded far away but irritatingly loud at the same time. On all fours, I began to crawl away from the prying noise. I wanted to be alone. To try to comprehend what I had just witnessed.

When arms wrapped around my waist and hoisted me upwards, I made no attempt to fight them. All my energy was sapped, and I hung there limply as a ragdoll. Though my eyes were partly blinded by the sting of smoke, I could see two spheres of crystalline blue above me: Peeta's eyes. I reached a shaky hand up to touch the face they belonged to...just to be sure it was real.

His jaw was warm and solid under my quivering fingertips. The muscles tightened at my touch, and I could feel just the slightest amount of stubble there. A blast of cold air came, and I could only imagine that Peeta had taken me outside. Yes...away from the fire. That made sense.

Thought of the fire came rushing in again and the nausea ripple through me in a sickly wave. Peeta tried to set me on my feet, but I swayed away to lean against a dumpster before the retching started. My eyes watered; it felt like I was going to puke up my insides right out onto the snowy ground. Peeta did what he could to help: holding my braid and any escaped strands of hair away from my face, keeping a soothing hand in the middle of my back. When I was done, he took off his apron and handed it to me so that I could wipe my mouth.

Completely drained, I stumbled backward, my mind still incapable of clear thought. Ever so gently, Peeta took me in his arms again from behind and walked us backwards until we were sitting on top of a pile of soggy cardboard boxes. I was in in Peeta's lap, my back against his rising and falling chest and my head leaning back to rest on his shoulder. He ran his hands up and down my goosebumped arms to try to rub some warmth into them. It took me a long while to realize that I had tears streaming down my face and I thanked my lucky stars that I was facing away from Peeta so that he couldn't see them.

I didn't know how long we stayed like that. It could have been minutes, hours..._days _for all I knew. Eventually, though, the back door of the bakery popped open and Rye's face appeared. "Hey, guys...It's all clear. We've got it all out. You can come inside now."

"Yeah, we'll be in in just a sec, Rye," Peeta told him. Rye looked at the pair of us for a moment but then nodded and retreated back inside. "Are you ready to go in?" Peeta whispered to me." I nodded numbly. It's not like we could've stayed out there for the rest of forever, though if that would've been an option, I would have gladly chosen it.

_Mellark's _smelled wretched with smoke inside, and I thought for sure I was going to vomit again, but I somehow managed to keep the contents of my stomach where it was supposed to be this time. I didn't realize Peeta had been holding my hand until he released it when we reached the kitchen. A tight knot of fear in my gut loosened considerably as I assessed the damage.

I knew from experience that things could've been much worse. The stove and the oven that went with it were obviously ruined, and the fire had burnt away the wall behind it and some of the cabinetry above, but it appeared that the fire had been contained to just that area. Aside from that, the kitchen looked just as it had before.

I saw a discarded fire extinguisher lying on the sooty floor, and Mr. Mellark stood near it, staring at the still-smoking oven. "How bad is it?" Peeta asked him hesitantly. Mr. Mellark turned, just then becoming aware of our presence, and shook his head.

"It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, we'll fix it. All that matters is that no one got hurt." He came forward to hug us both, and I felt immediately guilty.

"I'm so sorry..." I mumbled, looking down at my shoes. Rye, Peeta, and Mr. Mellark just stared at me.

"What on earth are you apologizing for, Katniss?" Mr. Mellark asked with complete incredulity.

"This whole thing is my fault," I admitted hoarsely. "If I hadn't made Rye help me with that recipe, the pan never would've caught fire and this whole thing would never have happened!"

"Katniss, I _offered _to help you. It's my own fault that I forgot about the fucking pan!" Rye cried, waving his hands in frustration.

"God, I just feel like I ruin everything around this place. Maybe-"

"Well, you don't," Peeta said firmly, his eyes flashing with what I almost mistook for anger. They softened quite quickly, though. He turned to his father. "I'm taking Katniss home. I'll be back in a little while."

"I have my car," I protested while Peeta grabbed his coat from the hook and put it on.

"Well...I'm driving." He extracted the keys from my coat pocket before he handed it to me. I followed him to my car without a word; the only sound was that of our footfalls crunching in the thin layer of snow on the sidewalk. I was grateful when he turned off the radio in the car so that we could ride in silence. A couple minutes into the drive, though, he spoke. "You can't blame yourself for everything, you know."

"I don't," was my flat reply.

"Yes, you do." I kept my mouth shut and trained my eyes on the buildings moving past us through the window. I was embarrassed that he'd seen me so emotional earlier. So utterly paralyzed by a little grease fire. It made my skin crawl and I felt exposed and vulnerable. We didn't speak the rest of the way until he pulled up in my usual parking space in front of my apartment. He put the car in park and killed the engine, but made no move to get out. "You know, maybe you should take some time off. Rearrange your plans so you can go see your mom for Christmas. We can sort things out at the bakery alright."

"Peeta, I'm fine," I said tartly and swung my door open to step out into the frigid air once again, starting to stomp towards my steps.

"Umm...no, Katniss, I don't think you are." I was infuriated that he was treating me this way-like some fragile child that needed to be taken care of-but I bit my lip to keep from saying anything while I fumbled to find my keys. "You just had a panic attack!"

"Yeah, well...fire's a bit of a touchy subject for me," I grumbled.

"I can see that. Which is exactly why-"

"You want to know the truth? About why I'm not going to see my mom?" He paused and looked at me intently. "The truth is, she didn't invite us. In fact, she hasn't called or wrote in over five months. And you wanna know why?" I sucked in a deep breath. "Because when my dad died in a mining accident when I was eleven, my mom fell apart and it became my responsibility to take care of my little sister. So when she died in a house fire six years later and I couldn't save her, my mom fucking blamed me. And now all she has left is a disappointment of a daughter who got knocked up when she was nineteen and had to drop out of college. Going home just to be reminded of what a fuckup I am isn't going to help me."

My heart was racing, my exhaustion replaced with frenzy. I fought to take deep, steady breaths but I could feel myself cracking like an eggshell. Why couldn't I just find my goddamn keys?! "Look, Katniss," Peeta said after a moment of watching me carefully, "I know what it's like to feel like you're being blamed for everything, and it fucking sucks, I know. But you've got to realize that you had no control over something like that-"

"Stop! Ju-just stop!" He shut his mouth sharply, taken aback. I leaned against the stair railing and pinched the bridge of my nose to lessen the ache in my head. "I just...I don't want a lecture right now, Peeta."

"If you want me to leave, just say so." His voice was so bleached of emotion that it made me rethink the 'yes' that was defensively present on the tip of my tongue. _Did _I want him to leave? I sighed and sunk down on the top step, shaking my head.

"Good, 'cause I have your keys." Peeta held up my key ring, which had both the keys to my car and to my door on it. I almost laughed. Almost.

Deftly, he slid in next to me on the step. Instead of meeting his eyes, I focused on his feet and noted that he double knotted his shoelaces. "So, I know you don't want a lecture," Peeta began, "but can I tell you a story?" I shrugged in consent. Why not? His gaze became distant for a moment, trying to decide where to start.

"My mom had the prettiest smile." I looked up at him, but he was focusing on something far away on the horizon. "And she smelled like apple pie all the time because that was her favorite thing to make. She used to roll the dough for the crust and then have me crimp it into the pan." Peeta smiled nostalgically. "It was great. She was so happy all the time...until she just wasn't anymore. It was like someone flipped a switch and she became an entirely different person."

"She started getting really upset if me or my brothers left messes around the house or if something we baked didn't turn out right. And then she would just say all this stuff that she would've never said in a million years; like...she would call me an idiot if I didn't get the math homework she was trying to help me with, or tell my dad she was sorry she ever married him. She locked herself up in her room for most of the day and told us to leave her alone because she wasn't feeling well. That went on for months. One day it was like she just snapped..."

I could see that his hand was gripping the rung of the stair railing excruciatingly tight. His knuckles were pale and shaky. "Me, Rye, and Cal had just bought this new video game, but the PlayStation we had wasn't working that day for some reason. Of course, my dad was at the bakery - this was before _Mellark's _was here in the city - so we couldn't ask him. So I, being the youngest, was sent by unanimous vote to go ask my mom if she could fix it. I knew I wasn't supposed to bother her, but I didn't really have a choice at seven years old with two older brothers calling you chicken. So I went in, and I guess the door opening woke her up." He paused and started fiddling with the hem of his pea coat.

"That was the first time she ever hit me." I cringed at his monotone voice. It was the complete lack of emotion that startled me more than anything else. "She gave me two black eyes and broke Rye's ribs before my dad figured out that there might be something wrong with her. We took her to the doctor and it turned out that she had 'early onset frontotemporal dementia, often characterized by personality change and aggression'. So we had to put her in the hospital to keep her from hurting herself or us and she was there up until four years ago. Apparently, she saved up a month's worth of her medication doses and took it all on New Year's Eve. Guess she just didn't wanna be around anymore."

I gaped at Peeta's openness. His entire soul was bared to me and he hadn't even flinched. How did he do it? I wanted to say I was sorry, but that felt like the cliché thing to do. Instead, I found my mouth opening and closing as I floundered for words to form an appropriate response. He spoke again before I could. "I'd just seen her the week before for Christmas. That last thing she ever said to me was that if I had been a better son, I would have taken care of her instead of putting her in the hospital. My mom died blaming me for the hell her life was." The wind whistled against the overhang of the roof above us.

"I guess we both know a thing or two about the blame game, then," I murmured.

"Yeah, I guess we do."

Without hesitance, I reached out and took his chilly hand in mine. We clung to each other like we would lifeboats in a stormy sea.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't wanna stay for dinner, Jo?" I asked, tossing a bunch of orange zest into a bowl. It was Christmas Eve and Johanna was over guiding me through a recipe for Orange Glazed Christmas Ham that I'd found on the internet. Neither of us were exactly gourmet chefs, but between the two of us we'd manage to turn out something edible.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Wouldn't want to intrude on you and Peeta's romantic evening." She winked.

"Since when have you been opposed to intruding?" I said, choosing to ignore her insinuation. "Besides, I don't think romantic is going to be the correct word to describe it. For one thing, Mia's going to be here. For another, Haymitch is coming, too."

"What? You invited the drunk, homeless man but not me?!"

"I just invited you!"

"Yeah, well I've got plans anyway. Finn and Annie are having me over, and no offense, but Annie's a way better cook. She's gonna have crab cakes and homemade mashed potatoes, and apple crisp that tastes like sex. Ugh...I literally have to go to the gym for like five straight weeks to work off all the food I shove in my mouth at their house. It's ridiculous."

"Just glaze the ham, you psycho." I shoved the bowl of glaze into her hands and gestured to the spiral-cut smoked ham sitting in a heavy roasting pan on top of the oven.

"I still think it's fuckin' weird that you people have Christmas dinner on _Christmas Eve_. You're supposed to wait until tomorrow," she explained matter-of-factly.

"This is just the way I've done it since I was born. Not changing anytime soon. Sorry." I took stock of what I still had to do. The ham was about the most culinary crafting I could handle, but I still had a few other minor dishes to prepare: rolls from _Mellark's _needed to go in the oven, the salad was waiting to be fixed, frozen potatoes needed to be cooked and mashed with butter and salt and pepper. I sighed and leaned against the counter. "Remind me never to do this hosting dinner thing again. It's a hassle and a half."

"You're not even doing anything! You grated some orange zest. Big whoop. I'm over here, slaving away over a hot stove for you..." Johanna grumbled, making me laugh.

"No but seriously, I told Peeta and Haymitch five o'clock. Its 3:50 already." Suddenly, I heard a small crash and the sound of something breaking, followed by Mia's shriek. Perfect. "I'll be right back. Keep glazing." I shuffled into the living room and found Mia standing over a sharded glass ornament - one of the silver balls, I thought. She looked up at me with wide eyes.

"I dropped it."

"I can see that," I chuckled, moving to the closet door to grab the broom and dustpan. "You've just gotta be real careful with the glass ones, okay button?" While me and Johanna blundered around in the kitchen, Mia was in charge of decorating the little fake tree I'd set up in the corner by the fireplace that morning. Looking at it now, I noticed that most of the ornaments were concentrated in one particular area that was easiest for her to reach, though I doubt my design would've been much more artistic. "Lookin' good so far. Here, I'll put on some music for you."

I flicked the dial on the ancient stereo atop the corner table and tuned it until I found something Christmas-y. "White Christmas" seemed to suit Mia just fine; she was twirling around the room like a ballerina, hanging ornaments gracefully as a swan. Satisfied, I wandered back into the kitchen and dumped the glass shards into the trash bin. "Everything okay?" Johanna asked.

"Yeah, she just dropped an ornament."

"She's definitely your kid, Katniss."

"Get back to work, you."

We finished prepping dinner in record time. At five o'clock on the dot, Johanna was slipping her coat on and heading out the door. "Oh, I almost forgot," she said with her hand on the door knob. She pulled a clumsily wrapped gift out of her bag and handed it to me. "Merry Christmas, love." She pecked me on the cheek and went on her way. Half curious, half dreading what Johanna had given me, I gingerly ripped it open. A tiny slip of paper fluttered to the floor. I bent down and snatched it up.

_Katniss,_  
_Merry Christmas. Get laid.  
xoxo, Jo _

Dumbfounded, I ripped the wrapping paper the rest of the way off. A box of Trojan condoms. "Oh my god, Jo..." I said to myself, wishing she was still here so I could smack her. _Ding dong_. I froze. Here I was with a box of condoms in my hands, and either Peeta or Haymitch was ringing my doorbell. Whoever it was was relatively on time, so my bet was on the former.

"I got it!" I heard Mia call from the living room. Shit. Mia darted past me and to the door. My room was too far away. Panicking, I turned to the kitchen and looked around frantically for a good hiding place. When I heard the door opening, I had no other choice but to shove the box deep into the back of one of the seldom-used drawers.

When I turned back to front room, I saw Peeta kicking snow off of his shoes, his arms laden down with several containers he was trying to balance. "Oh my gosh, here." I rushed forward to relieve him of his load.

"Thanks," he said gratefully when he could finally take his coat off.

"What is all this stuff?" I was spreading the containers out over the kitchen table. There was one large one and then five or six smaller ones.

"Open it up and see." I pulled the lid off of the big container. Inside were about two dozen holiday-themed sugar cookies. They ranged in shape from Christmas tree to Santa hat to bowed present, but all of them were unfrosted. Catching on, I peeked into one of the smaller containers and saw that it was full of thick red frosting. "I thought Mia might like to do some cookie decorating. And you and I, of course." Peeta smiled widely.

"Yay! Cookies! Are these the same ones you made me before, Peeta?" Mia chirped excitedly, flitting around to open all the containers and reveal their contents. We had red, green, yellow, and blue frosting plus two containers of sugar crystal sprinkles.

"You betcha. Now you get to decorate them however you want."

"Can I do it now?" Mia looked from Peeta to me expectantly.

"Go for it," I said warmly. Mia had a cookie out and a butter knife in hand in about two milliseconds. Turning to Peeta, I poked him with my elbow and said, "You need to stop bringing delicious, sugary items to my apartment. I'm going to get diabetes."

"Just eat some broccoli for dinner. You'll be fine," he joked, nudging me back. "Speaking of dinner, what are you making? It smells amazing."

"Oh, uh...thanks. It's some orange-glazed ham recipe I found online. Johanna was just over here helping me make sure I didn't totally screw it up."

"Yeah, I just saw her walking to her car when I got here. She said you'd probably wanna show me the present she gave you?" I blushed, mortified. Johanna Mason was going to get a few choice words from me the next time I saw her.

"Oh, probably not. Just some new shoes. Girl stuff," I covered lamely. "Let's decorate these cookies. It could be awhile before Haymitch turns up. If he even turns up at all."

"Haymitch?" Peeta asked as we joined Mia at the table. "As in...Haymitch the homeless guy you told me about that one time?" Oh no. Had I forgotten to mention that Haymitch would be coming, too? Would it weird him out?

"That's the one. Sorry, guess I kind of forgot to tell you I invited him." I paused and waited for him to scratch the back of his neck like he did when he was uncomfortable or nervous. Instead, he shrugged.

"Alright, cool. I made plenty of cookies to decorate." I didn't want to crush his positive attitude by saying that Haymitch really wasn't the cookie-decorating type, but it was the truth. I grabbed a Santa hat and got started.

We worked in harmony, chitchatting and at times singing along with the carols on the radio. After a particularly passionate rendition of "Santa Clause Is Coming to Town" by Peeta left Mia and I in tears of laughter, I put my elbow in a dish of frosting and we gave up trying to be serious. When the doorbell rang for a second time and Mia hopped out of her chair, I stood up and told her I would get it, prepared to turn Haymitch away if he was drunk. I liked him, but I wasn't going to have him in my house and around my child completely shitfaced.

When I opened the door, I was confused at first. A stranger was standing on my steps. His greeting of "Hey, sweetheart," was the only thing that clued me in. Haymitch looked like a completely different person. The scruffy blonde beard usually on his face had been shaved smooth, and his hair looked clean...styled even. His clothes had no mysterious stains or trace scent of alcohol on them. I practically had to pick my jaw up off of the floor, it was such a dramatic transformation.

"Haymitch...holy shit," I gasped. He burst out laughing, and his stained teeth looked out of place now that he looked presentable. "You clean up real nice. You should do this more often."

"Yeah, well when you can find me permanent access to a shower and a washing machine, you let me know. Now...are you gonna let me in, or are you just gonna gawk at me. I know I look good, but I'm starving."

"Are you sober?" I asked him wearily, planted in front of his entrance. He wasn't getting in without a solemn oath to his un-intoxication.

"Dry as a bone. I haven't touched a drop this entire week to get it outta my system." When I eyed him up and down, he snorted and said, "What? You gonna make me walk in a straight line and say the alphabet backwards? Where's your breathalyzer, chief?" I laughed.

"I can't even say the alphabet backwards sober. Come on in, Haymitch." He followed me in, and I caught him looking around at the apartment discreetly. Mia's greeting was not immediate; she was just as perplexed as I was about Haymitch's new appearance. She paused to take him in, her knife full of frosting and poised over a cookie. Haymitch cleared his throat.

"Well...this is a Hallmark scene if I ever saw one," he said gruffly.

"Haymitch?" Mia gaped. "You look funny..." He guffawed with laughter.

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment." He turned his eyes to Peeta then, who was watching the interaction silently. "Haymitch." He stuck his weathered hand out. "I don't usually look this good." Peeta met the handshake with a smile.

"Peeta Mellark. I don't usually look this good either." Haymitch smirked and looked at me.

"I like this one, Katniss. Little too nice, but I'm sure if he hangs around with you often enough, some of your hostility'll rub off on him."

"Haha, very funny." I said sarcastically. "So...who's ready to eat?" My question met with a resounding chorus of 'yes'. We put our frosted cookies on a platter and cleared off the table to make room for the food. Peeta helped carry the dishes out to the table and then graciously carved the ham for me when he saw me trying to wield the carving knife.

I couldn't believe how well this had all come together. The food was actually decent, Peeta was here, Haymitch was sober, Mia was happy. This was by far the best Christmas I'd had in quite awhile. "Oh my god, Katniss, this is delicious," Peeta raved. "And here I was believing you this whole time about you being such a terrible cook."

"Most of this is Johanna's work, but thanks."

"Be better with a little wine," Haymitch grumbled under his breath. We managed to polish off two helpings each of everything on the table and then had some of the cookies. By the time seven o'clock rolled around, we were all sitting in the living room in food comas, contentedly watching _Elf_. This was my favorite Christmas movie; Mia and I watched it every Christmas Eve and then often spent the rest of the year quoting lines from it to make each other laugh. I even caught Haymitch trying to conceal a few smiles at some of the funnier parts.

"Hey," I whispered to Peeta about half an hour in, "I'll be right back. I'm gonna go start on some of the dishes."

"I'll come help." He stood up to follow me, and I didn't see any point in protesting. Mia was engrossed in the film and didn't appear to even notice our departure, but I saw Haymitch watching us out of the corner of my eye. Quietly, Peeta and I gathered the empty dishes and carried them to the sink. Anything leftover I put into a bag to send with Haymitch when he left.

"So...was this better than your original plans?" I asked Peeta while the sink was filling up.

"Oh yeah," he said emphatically. "By about a million times."

"Good." I lowered the mashed potato bowl into the sudsy water and started to scrub. Peeta waited with a towel next to me. "Did you guys get that oven fixed up in time for the Christmas rush?" I hadn't been into work the last three days since Mia was home from school on Winter break. After the fire, Mr. Mellark had put caution tape around the worst area of damage and instructed everyone to just leave it be until he could get a repair guy to come in. I was hoping they'd been able to get it working before all the orders came pouring in for the big Christmas dinners.

"Yeah, we've had some guys in there working on it the last couple days. Looks good as new. We just need to wait for the new oven to come in." I nodded. I still felt like what happened was partially my fault, but I knew that if I apologized or looked even remotely sorry, Peeta would launch into a campaign about how I couldn't have controlled what happened. I handed him the clean bowl for him to dry. I heard creaking by the door and both of us looked up.

"Hey, sweetheart, I'm headed out. Thanks for dinner."

"You're very welcome, Haymitch. Thank you for arriving sober."

"The things I do for yeh...sheesh." He laughed good-naturedly.

"Oh hey, don't forget this," Peeta interjected, holding up the bag of leftover food. "Katniss made it up for you." I waited for him to make a big fuss about me giving him handouts, but he accepted the food without a peep.

"That reminds me, Peeta. You look like a handyman, yourself..." Haymitch began.

"Uh...not exactly," Peeta admitted, puzzled.

"I noticed part of the stair railing outside was kinda wobbly. Mind if I show you so yeh can see if you might be able to fix it up?"

"Umm...sure, I guess."

"Haymitch, what are you talking about? The railing is-" I started to say, but Haymitch waved me off.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. Won't take but a minute." Peeta shot me a look that said 'I have no idea' and then trailed after Haymitch out the front door. I tried not to be curious, but I couldn't help it. After two minutes passed and they still hadn't shown back up, I set the plate I had been scrubbing on the counter and tiptoed to the door to see if I could hear any of what they were saying. A stealthy peek through the peephole showed that they were still on the porch. I pressed an ear to the crack in the door.

"-nice guy, but I wanna make sure you know what you're getting yourself into." I caught the tail end of whatever Haymitch was saying. "She's had a rough go of things, what with the daddy not being in the picture and no family to go home to. Hell, I used to see her at the shelter some nights when she was about this big around, pregnant as you can get. That woman accepts help from no one. She's a fighter, but you can only fight so hard. You just better be sure you're good to her, or you and I are gonna have a problem."

I couldn't believe it. Haymitch was practically giving Peeta the 'what-are-your-intentions-with-my-daughter' speech! Breathless and dizzy, I pulled away from the door and hurried back to the sink. My thoughts were jumbled together. What did Haymitch mean by what Peeta was getting himself into? A relationship? With me? My heart pounded. Did I want that? I didn't know.

I jumped when I heard the door open. Peeta came back to where he was standing before and picked up the towel again. I sensed a far away look in his eyes. "Everything okay?" I tried to ask casually.

"Yup," he nodded. We finished the dishes and then shuffled around the kitchen uncomfortably to put them away. I noticed that he rubbed at the back of his head whenever he had to ask me where something went.

"Mom!" Mia called, running into the room. "Can I stay up until Santa comes?" Uh oh.

"Button, you know Santa doesn't come until you're asleep."

"I'll be really quiet. I can hide. He won't know I'm awake," she begged. I sighed. It was getting more difficult every year to get her to sleep on Christmas. The girl wanted to see Santa with her own two eyes. Thankfully, I had Peeta, who's honey sweet voice could persuade her (or me for that matter) to do just about anything.

"Oh, but he would know if you were pretending. He has elves in all the houses tonight to tell him when the kids are sleeping so he knows when to come."

"Really?!" Mia squealed, looking around for elves.

"Yeah, and you know what would be good to do? If you leave Santa some cookies, the elves will see you did it and tell him. Then he'll know for sure that you're a good girl and make sure all your gifts get here on time."

"Good idea! I'll get the cookies." She darted to the leftover ones on the platter from earlier. "He can have my two best ones." She held up a frosted star and Christmas tree.

"Awesome," Peeta agreed. "Now we'll just put them on a plate and leave him a glass of milk, and then you've gotta hurry up and get ready for bed so he can come." Mia watched while I put the cookies on a small plate and poured the milk.

"Look good?" I sought her approval.

"Yeah. I'm going to go brush my teeth. Then you can tuck me in."

"Jeese, why don't you just do my job?" I said to Peeta jokingly when she'd left the room. He chuckled and shrugged. "No, but seriously...you're good with her."

"I need all the practice I can get. My brother's wife is pregnant, so I'll have a little niece or nephew soon."

"Oh, well...if you want more practice, you can help me put Santa's presents under the tree." I motioned toward the closet to show where they were hidden.

"What?!" Peeta gasped in fake horror. "You mean Santa Clause isn't real?"

"Shhhh!" I shushed him through a laugh and grabbed onto his arm. We quickly moved all the gifts under the tree and then I went to go make sure Mia was in bed.

Not surprisingly, she had been more exhausted than she'd realized. She was hardly awake when I went in to throw the covers over her small frame and peck a kiss on her silky forehead. When I came back to the living room, Peeta was standing in front of the mantel over the fireplace with his hands in his pockets. "Is this your family?" he asked when I was standing beside him. He reached out and grabbed a small, silver frame from the mantel. It was dusty, but I could easily make out which one it was.

A family picnic from when I was six or seven. Prim would've been about three then. We were all sitting on a blanket in the sand. My dad had a sunburned face, and he had his arm around my mom. I knelt beside them with a popsicle dripping down my arm, and Prim was curled up fast asleep in my mom's lap with her stuffed goat, Lady.

I swallowed. "Yeah. Fourth of July outing to the beach, I think." I took the photo gently from Peeta and ran my finger over the glass separating me from my family. If only that were all that separated us now.

"You look just like your dad." Peeta whispered. I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"That's what everyone says. According to my mom, I got all my stubbornness from him, too." We were quiet while I examined the memory in my hands - I hadn't looked at these in awhile, as evidenced by all the dust.

"Hey, let's play twenty questions," Peeta suggested out of the blue. I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Like, where you pick an object and I have to guess it by asking you questions?" He shook his head.

"No...the grownup version." I felt my eyes widen. What exactly was he suggesting? "I feel like I don't really know anything about you. We each take turns asking questions and whatever question we ask, we both have to answer it." I nearly let out an audible sigh and my heartbeat slowed significantly.

"Okay, yeah." I sat down on the couch and wrapped a blanket around myself. "You go first."

"Alright..." He thought for a second. "What's your favorite color?" I blinked. _That's _what he wanted to know?

"Umm...green. What's yours?"

"Orange."

"Really? Like Effie-Trinket's-hair orange?" I questioned, referring to the obnoxious current judge on American Idol, whose hair was an orange Creamsicle hue.

"Ugh, no." Peeta shuddered. "Like sunset orange." I nodded; I could see it. "Okay, your turn."

"Hmm...what's your favorite song right now?" That had Peeta scrunching his face up in thought.

"'Meet Virginia' by Train," he finally said. Now I was scrunching my face.

"Seriously?"

"What, you don't like that song?" he asked, faking a hurt expression.

"No, I did...when it came out like _twenty _years ago."

"For your information, that song was released in 1999, and it happens to be a classic," Peeta rattled off in a haughty voice.

"Okay, whatever. Next question."

"What? You still have to answer your own."

"Oh yeah. Well...I don't really have time to listen to a lot of music," I admitted. "I'm not really sure why I asked that question, to be honest."

"Fine, then what was the last song you listened to?" he conceded.

"'Santa Clause is Coming to Town' by Peeta Mellark." That got him laughing.

"Okay, but we never speak of that again." I laughed but nodded in agreement. "Next question, then. What's your secret hobby?" That was an easy one.

"Archery," I stated with a smile, and it was like I could feel the weight of the bow in my hands.

"Really?" Peeta looked surprised. I supposed it was kind of a random hobby. I didn't really know anybody else that did it.

"My dad used to take me hunting when I was little. He taught me how to shoot an arrow when I was five and I've loved it ever since," I explained. "There's not a lot of places you can shoot around here, though, so I don't get to do it as often as I used to. I'm probably rusty."

"Still, though...remind me never to piss you off."

"Damn right. What about you...what's your secret hobby? And you can't say baking, because I already know _all _about that."

"Obviously. But...um...my secret hobby would have to be...painting. Or sketching. Anything art related, really."

"That's neat. Do you do it a lot?"

"Well, that's what I was going to college for before I dropped out. Columbia University for a degree in visual arts."

"Why'd you drop out?" I asked. If he was able to get into a school like Columbia, he must've been good.

"Oh you know...this and that. My dad had a lot on his plate at the time, so he needed some extra help at the bakery. That and the fact that I realized maybe the whole starving artist thing wasn't really the best career move."

"Well, as you can see," I gestured to Mia's room, "college didn't really work out so good for me, either."

"Where were you at?" Peeta asked with genuine curiosity.

"NYU. For Biology. That's why I moved out here in the first place. Somewhere far away from home." I chuckled. "Then I got pregnant with Mia, and I figured I better get a job stat, 'cause I could barely afford Ramen noodles, let alone feed and diaper a kid. Yeah...yeah, life gets in the way like that sometimes, huh?"

"Sorry if this is overstepping a boundary, but..." Peeta began, looking at me tentatively. "What about...Mia's father? He wasn't in the picture?" I knew he could see when my face got stony, because his own paled. "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. Sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"No." I said quietly. "Gloss wasn't in the picture."

"Gloss? That was his name?"

"His last name. Spencer Gloss. Gloss was a nickname from high school." Just his name left a bad taste in my mouth. "I met him Freshman year. He was a friend of a friend. Met him at some party. And well...you know the rest of the story."

"Let me guess...he wasn't thrilled with the idea of having a kid, so he packed up and left?"

"No, he wanted her. He was over the moon about it. But Gloss has...some problems." Peeta looked at me quizzically. "He drank a lot, and partied a lot. He was wild. And he wasn't a loveable drunk like Haymitch. He got mean. And he had a temper if you got him mad. I told him he needed to clean up his act if this was going to work. I guess he wasn't quite ready to settle down. So I left him."

"And that was it? You never saw him again?" I laughed darkly.

"Oh, I saw him again alright. When he confronted me on the street on multiple occasions and told me he was going to kill me if I didn't come back to him."

"What?" Peeta gasped in shock. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Oh yeah. I finally managed to get a restraining order on him. He packed up and moved out to Ohio to stay with his sister about three months before Mia was born. That's the last I heard of him."

"Jesus." Peeta ran a hand through his hair.

"He was an alright guy if you caught him on his good days. I guess I just thought I could fix him. Apparently, I was wrong." I wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders and yawned.

"I guess I should probably let you get some sleep. I'm sure someone will want to be up early tomorrow morning to look at all the presents."

"Guilty," I joked, raising my hand. I stood up and started to put all of his containers into a large paper bag so that they'd be easier to carry while he put on his shoes and coat.

"Well, thanks so much for having me. It was fun. Same thing next year?" He smiled.

"Definitely." I handed him the bag and opened the door so he could step out. He lingered in the doorway, and we were so close together, we were almost chest to chest. I felt my body heating up despite the cold weather. Delicately, I put an open palm on his chest, over his heart. "Your heart's beating so fast..." I murmured in amazement, feeling it's racing pulse underneath my hand. I could feel flakes of snow landing in my hair and on my shoulders. He brought his free hand up to brush some of them away. Then his eyes looked upward. I followed his gaze.

"What?" I asked softly. There was nothing up there but the rim of the doorway. Very non-exciting.

"I was hoping for mistletoe so I'd have an excuse." He dropped the paper bag on the snowy ground and moved me closer to him with his hands on my waist. My arms were folded up between his chest and my own. Intoxicated by the beat of pumping blood in my ears, I traced my fingers over his broad pectoral muscles.

"You don't need an excuse," I breathed, the corner of my mouth against his. Peeta held my face between his calloused hands and brought his mouth slowly down to meet mine. It was sweet and dreamy, slow and intense all at the same time. His warm lips moving against mine cleared all thoughts from my brain. Tenderly, he brought his hands down to my waist once again and pulled me flush against his body. I slid my fingers through his golden hair and tugged until I heard him suck in a breath sharply before a guttural moan escaped from deep in the back of his throat.

"Katniss," he hissed, pulling away to rest his forehead against mine. We stayed there, and I watched the snow swirling around us and blowing in through my open door. It sparkled on my rug and the linoleum, but I didn't have a care in the world just then. It felt like a Christmas miracle. I was tempted to pinch myself to see if I would wake up, because never in a million years did I think I would ever be able to feel this way again. The carefully constructed walls I'd built around my heart (to save it, to protect it from getting hurt again)...this boy holding me was chipping away at them day by day.

I should've felt threatened, afraid even. Every instinct I had told me to run away as fast as I possibly could in the opposite direction. But I didn't. Something held me there. Peeta held me there. For the first time in a long time, I felt safe where I was. "What now?" I asked shakily, my nose brushing his cheek when I spoke.

"Now?" Peeta laughed breathlessly. "Now...I kiss you again," he said and returned his lips to mine.

* * *

**A/N: **There's Nutella on the Q key of my laptop...


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